Synonyms of plaintive

plaintive

adjective

ˈplān-tiv 

as in mournful

expressing or suggesting mourning

the puppy's plaintive expression after we put the toy away was rather amusing

Synonyms & Similar Words

• mournful
• weeping
• funeral
• heartbroken
• wailing
• bitter
• anguished
• grieving
• melancholy
• doleful
• sorrowful
• sad
• plangent
• aching
• tearful
• dolorous
• agonized
• lugubrious
• rueful
• lamentable
• sorry
• regretful
• somber
• unhappy
• crying
• woeful
• funereal
• depressed
• bleak
• bewailing
• morbid
• elegiac
• deploring
• dark
• bemoaning
• keening
• pathetic
• dolesome
• moody
• disconsolate
• despondent
• downcast
• forlorn
• dejected
• heartsick
• woebegone
• inconsolable
• dispirited
• darkening
• miserable
• careworn
• piteous
• groaning
• moaning
• gloomy
• desolate
• crestfallen
• sombre
• glum
• howling
• morose
• brokenhearted
• bleeding
• sullen
• gray
• elegiacal
• black
• grey
• heartsore
• cheerless
• dirgelike
• downhearted
• suffering
• pessimistic
• low
• saturnine
• wretched
• bawling
• joyless
• triste
• low-spirited
• dismal
• dreary
• yammering
• comfortless

Antonyms & Near Antonyms

• triumphant
• joyful
• happy
• cheerful
• cheery
• bright
• smiling
• delighted
• laughing
• joyous
• exulting
• blithe
• buoyant
• rejoicing
• merry
• jolly
• lighthearted
• mirthful
• hopeful
• blissful
• optimistic
• encouraging
• glorying
• cheering
• rhapsodic
• rapturous
• ecstatic
• euphoric
• jocund
• heady
• giddy
• blithesome
• rhapsodical
• elated
• exhilarated

Examples of plaintive in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

The plaintive piano notes that open Ambient 1: Music for Airports are the first sounds many encountered in connection with ambient music, and the album that gave the genre its name is still widely cited as its greatest. —Daniel Bromfield, SPIN, 16 July 2024

Miller’s Taya is plaintive, searching, but also resolute, willing to face the reality that life with a perpetual ghost is no life at all. —Stephanie Zacharek, TIME, 28 June 2024

There, Kahan, a 27-year-old Vermont folk singer who’s captured TikTok’s Gen Z romantics, got nearly every one of his plaintive lyrics absolutely howled back at him. —August Brown, Los Angeles Times, 21 June 2024

The kind of plaintive breakup song Swift could write in her sleep at this point in her career, with standout guitar work and impressive vulnerability in both lyrics and performance. 96. —Nate Jones, Vulture, 20 May 2024

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