Plightful

adj

adj ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Adjective
  1. 1
    Full of risk or danger; risky; dangerous; perilous.

    "This is their doom that here in sin Lie and their sins will not cease; But would they think about Judgment Day, It behooves them to leave their plightful play."

  2. 2
    Indicating plight; dire; grim; grievous.

    "For example, poor villagers can destroy the forests because of their plightful conditions."

  3. 3
    Full of plight; plighted; pledged; devoted.

    "She liv'd and lov'd.―I wedded two. 'The Devil!'―Yes. What could I do? To her I ow'd my plightful vow, To Ruth, my life, and freedom now."

  4. 4
    Pitiful.

    "In some surreal and inevitable moment, some jingle-jangle wee hour of morning, they may even have shared billing on the same campus stage: joined harmonics and harmonics, strummed out some plightful version of "Musee des Beaux Arts" [...]"

Example

More examples

"This is their doom that here in sin Lie and their sins will not cease; But would they think about Judgment Day, It behooves them to leave their plightful play."

Etymology

Etymology 1

From Middle English plightful, plihtful, equivalent to plight + -ful.

Etymology 2

From plight + -ful.

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.