PLAINTIVE

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does plaintive mean? 

• PLAINTIVE (adjective)
  The adjective PLAINTIVE has 1 sense:

1. expressing sorrow

  Familiarity information: PLAINTIVE used as an adjective is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• PLAINTIVE (adjective)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Expressing sorrow

Synonyms:

mournful; plaintive

Similar:

sorrowful (experiencing or marked by or expressing sorrow especially that associated with irreparable loss)

Derivation:

plaintiveness (expressing sorrowfulness)

 Context examples 

He lies down at my feet, stretches himself out as if to sleep, and with a plaintive cry, is dead.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

She had a plaintive way of saying, "When Papa was rich we did so-and-so," which was very touching, and her long words were considered 'perfectly elegant' by the girls.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

And you may say, if you please, that I shall prepare my most plaintive airs against his return, in compassion to his feelings, as I know his horse will lose.

(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)

"But I love Martin already," was the plaintive protest.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

To their ears came the sounds of dogs wrangling and scuffling, the guttural cries of men, the sharper voices of scolding women, and once the shrill and plaintive cry of a child.

(White Fang, by Jack London)

“And do you see her, sir, tolerably often?” asked Isabella in the plaintive tone which just suited her father.

(Emma, by Jane Austen)

He threw himself on his knees, and held up his hands, wringing them in plaintive supplication, and poured forth a torrent of entreaty, with the tears rolling down his cheeks, and his whole face and form expressive of the deepest emotion:—Let me entreat you, Dr. Seward, oh, let me implore you, to let me out of this house at once.

(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)

We had hardly closed the thornbush door of our zareba, clasped each other's hands, and thrown ourselves panting upon the ground beside our spring, when we heard a patter of feet and then a gentle, plaintive crying from outside our entrance.

(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

“She was a charming woman, sir!” he observed in a plaintive manner.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

The plaintive wail which succeeded the passionate roar went to Meg's heart, and she ran up to say beseechingly...

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)