different between lamentation vs plaint

English

Etymology

Recorded since 1375, from Latin l?ment?ti? (“wailing, moaning, weeping”), from the deponent verb l?mentor, from l?mentum (“wail; wailing”), itself from a Proto-Indo-European *leh?- (“to howl”), presumed ultimately imitative. Replaced Old English cwiþan. Lament is a 16th-century back-formation.

Pronunciation

• (UK, US) IPA^(key): /?læm.?n?te?.??n/, /?læm.?n?te?.??n/
• Rhymes: -e???n

Noun

lamentation (countable and uncountable, plural lamentations)

1. The act of lamenting.
2. A sorrowful cry; a lament.
3. Specifically, mourning.
4. lamentatio, (part of) a liturgical Bible text (from the book of Job) and its musical settings, usually in the plural; hence, any dirge
5. A group of swans.

Related terms

Translations

References

• Douglas Harper (2001–2021) , “lamentation”, in Online Etymology Dictionary

French

Etymology

From Middle French, from Latin l?ment?ti? (“wailing, moaning, weeping”).

Pronunciation

Noun

lamentation f (plural lamentations)

1. lamentation, loud/ostentatious plaint

Related terms

Further reading

• “lamentation” in Trésor de la langue française informatisé (The Digitized Treasury of the French Language).

Middle French

Etymology

From Latin l?ment?ti? (“wailing, moaning, weeping”).

Noun

lamentation f (plural lamentations)

1. lamentation, loud/ostentatious plaint

English

Etymology

From Middle English plainte, borrowed from Anglo-Norman plainte (“lamentation”), plaint (“lament”), and Old French pleinte (“lamentation”), pleint (“lament”) (modern French plainte), from Medieval Latin plancta (“plaint”), from Latin planctus (“a beating of the breast in lamentation, beating, lamentation”), from Latin plango (“I beat the breast, I lament”); see plain.

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /ple?nt/
• Rhymes: -e?nt

Noun

plaint (plural plaints)

1. (poetic or archaic) A lament or woeful cry.
   • 1827, Maria Elizabeth Budden, Nina, An Icelandic Tale, page 11:

     In the first paroxysm of his grief, Ingolfr exclaimed, (what sorrowing heart has not echoed his plaint?) that he could never more taste of joy.

   • 1938, Xavier Herbert, Capricornia, Chapter V, p. 75, [1]

     His shriek was as feeble as the plaint of a grass-stalk in a storm.

2. A complaint.
   • 1897, Henry James, What Maisie Knew:

     she seemed to repeat, though with perceptible resignation, her plaint of a moment before. ‘Your father, darling, is a very odd person indeed.’

3. (archaic) A sad song.
4. (archaic or Britain law) An accusation.

   Once the plaint had been made there was nothing that could be done to revoke it.

Related terms

• complaint
• plaintiff
• plaintive

Further reading

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

Anagrams

• -platin, Taplin, platin, pliant

French

Etymology

From Middle French plaint, pleint, from Old French plaint, pleint, from Latin planctus.

Verb

plaint m (feminine singular plainte, masculine plural plaints, feminine plural plaintes)

1. past participle of plaindre

Related terms

• plainte

Anagrams

• pilant, pliant