The plaintive melody broke her heart.
Source: tatoeba (3856414)
Plaintive
//ˈpleɪntɪv//
Synonyms for "plaintive" (153 found)
Ranked by relevance and common usage.
Closest matches (31)
Strong matches (46)
Related words (76)
Adjective(47 words)
Adjective(1 words)
Related word relations
OpenGloss and ConceptNet supply richer edges like generalizations, collocations, and derivations.
Related terms
2 entriesderived
3 entriesrelated to
5 entriessimilar
2 entriesTranslations
23 translations across 11 languages.
Bulgarian
2 entries- жален adj (Sorrowful, mournful or melancholic)
- тъжен adj (Sorrowful, mournful or melancholic)
Czech
1 entries- plačtivý adj (Sorrowful, mournful or melancholic)
Georgian
1 entries- საცოდავი adj (Sorrowful, mournful or melancholic)
German
4 entries- Klage adj (Sorrowful, mournful or melancholic)
- klagend adj (Sorrowful, mournful or melancholic)
- traurig adj (Sorrowful, mournful or melancholic)
- wehleidig adj (Sorrowful, mournful or melancholic)
Irish
2 entries- acaointeach adj (Sorrowful, mournful or melancholic)
- truacánta adj (Sorrowful, mournful or melancholic)
Italian
1 entries- querulo adj (Sorrowful, mournful or melancholic)
Māori
1 entries- tīkapa adj (Sorrowful, mournful or melancholic)
Russian
1 entries- го́рестный adj (Sorrowful, mournful or melancholic)
Scottish Gaelic
1 entries- tiamhaidh adj (Sorrowful, mournful or melancholic)
Spanish
4 entries- lagrimal adj (Sorrowful, mournful or melancholic)
- lastimero adj (Sorrowful, mournful or melancholic)
- melancólico adj (Sorrowful, mournful or melancholic)
- morriñoso adj (Sorrowful, mournful or melancholic)
Ukrainian
1 entries- жалібний adj (Sorrowful, mournful or melancholic)
Sample sentences
13 total sentences available.
Tom has such a plaintive quality to his singing voice that even his happy songs sound sad.
Source: tatoeba (3890588)
Nine hundred years shall you wander over the lakes and streams of Erin. This only I will grant unto you: that you retain your own speech, and there shall be no music in the world equal to yours, the plaintive music you shall sing.
Source: tatoeba (5385997)
Then his plaintive tone / no more could Venus bear, but interrupts her son: / "Stranger", she answered, "whosoe'er thou be; / not unbeloved of heavenly powers, I ween, / thou breath'st the vital air, whom Fate's decree / permits a Tyrian city to have seen."
Source: tatoeba (6789018)
Showing 4 of 13 available sentences.
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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.