different between crisis vs plight

English

Etymology

From Latin crisis, from Ancient Greek ?????? (krísis, “a separating, power of distinguishing, decision, choice, election, judgment, dispute”), from ????? (krín?, “pick out, choose, decide, judge”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?k?a?s?s/

Noun

crisis (plural crises)

1. A crucial or decisive point or situation; a turning point.
2. An unstable situation, in political, social, economic or military affairs, especially one involving an impending abrupt change.
3. A sudden change in the course of a disease, usually at which point the patient is expected to either recover or die.
4. (psychology) A traumatic or stressful change in a person's life.

5. (drama) A point in a drama at which a conflict reaches a peak before being resolved.

Derived terms

Related terms

• critic
• critical
• criticize
• critique
• criterion

Translations

Further reading

• crisis in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.
• crisis in The Century Dictionary, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911.

Asturian

Noun

crisis f (plural crisis)

1. crisis

Catalan

Pronunciation

• (Balearic, Central, Valencian) IPA^(key): /?k?i.zis/
• Rhymes: -izis

Noun

crisis

1. plural of crisi

Dutch

Etymology

Borrowed from Latin crisis, from Ancient Greek ?????? (krísis).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?kri.z?s/
• Hyphenation: cri?sis

Noun

crisis f (plural crises or crisissen, diminutive crisisje n)

1. crisis
2. financial crisis

Derived terms

Related terms

• kritiek
• kritisch

Descendants

• ? Indonesian: krisis

Old French

Etymology

Borrowed from Latin crisis.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /kri.?zis/

Noun

crisis f (oblique plural crisis, nominative singular crisis, nominative plural crisis)

1. crisis, emergency; urgent situation

Spanish

Etymology

From Ancient Greek ?????? (krísis, “a separating, power of distinguishing, decision, choice, election, judgment, dispute”), from ????? (krín?, “pick out, choose, decide, judge”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?k?isis/, [?k?i.sis]

Noun

crisis f (plural crisis)

1. crisis
2. attack; fit

Derived terms

• anticrisis
• crisis de comportamiento
• crisis de migraña

Related terms

• crítico

Further reading

• “crisis” in Diccionario de la lengua española, Vigésima tercera edición, Real Academia Española, 2014.

English

Pronunciation

• enPR: pl?t, IPA^(key): /pla?t/
• Rhymes: -a?t

Etymology 1

From Middle English plit (“fold, wrinkle, bad situation”), conflation of Middle English pliht, plight (“risky promise, peril”) (from Old English pliht "danger, risk") and Anglo-Norman plit, plyte (“fold, condition”), from Old French pleit (“condition, manner of folding”) (from Vulgar Latin *plictum, from Latin plicitum (“fold”)).

Noun

plight (plural plights)

1. A dire or unfortunate situation. [from 14th c.]
   • 2005, Lesley Brown, translating Plato, Sophist, 243c:

     Though we say we are quite clear about it and understand when someone uses the expression, unlike that other expression, maybe we're in the same plight with regard to them both.
2. (now rare) A (neutral) condition or state. [from 14th c.]
3. (obsolete) Good health. [14th–19th c.]
   • 1590, Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene, III.7:

     All wayes shee sought him to restore to plight, / With herbs, with charms, with counsel, and with teares […].

Translations

Etymology 2

From Middle English plight (“risk, danger”), from Old English pliht (“peril, risk, danger, damage, plight”), from Proto-West Germanic *plihti (“care, responsibility, duty”). A suffixed form of the root represented by Old English pleoh (“risk, danger, hurt, peril"; also "responsibility”) and pl?on (“to endanger, risk”). Akin to Old English plihtan (“to endanger, compromise”). Cognate with Scots plicht (“responsibility, plight”), Dutch plicht, Low German plicht (“duty”), German Pflicht (“duty”), Danish pligt (“duty”), Yiddish ??????? (flikht). More at pledge.

Noun

plight (plural plights)

1. (now chiefly dialectal) Responsibility for ensuing consequences; risk; danger; peril.
2. (now chiefly dialectal) An instance of danger or peril; a dangerous moment or situation.
3. (now chiefly dialectal) Blame; culpability; fault; wrong-doing; sin; crime.
4. (now chiefly dialectal) One's office; duty; charge.
5. (archaic) That which is exposed to risk; that which is plighted or pledged; security; a gage; a pledge.

Derived terms

• plightful
• plightly

Translations

Verb

plight (third-person singular simple present plights, present participle plighting, simple past and past participle plighted)

1. (transitive, now rare) To expose to risk; to pledge.
2. (transitive) Specifically, to pledge (one's troth etc.) as part of a marriage ceremony.
3. (reflexive) To promise (oneself) to someone, or to do something.
   • 1992, Hilary Mantel, A Place of Greater Safety, Harper Perennial 2007, p. 226:

     I ask what I have done to deserve it, one daughter hobnobbing with radicals and the other planning to plight herself to a criminal.

Derived terms

• plighter

Etymology 3

From Middle English plyghten, ply?ten, pley?ten, pleiten, pliten, from the noun (see below).

Verb

plight (third-person singular simple present plights, present participle plighting, simple past and past participle plighted)

1. (obsolete) To weave; to braid; to fold; to plait.

Etymology 4

From Middle English pli?t, plight, plyt, pleit, from Anglo-Norman pleit (“pleat, fold”). More at plait.

Noun

plight (plural plights)

2. (obsolete) A network; a plait; a fold; rarely a garment.

Further reading

• Plight in the Encyclopædia Britannica (11th edition, 1911)