How To Use Plaintive In A Sentence

A Scottish moor long bore the reputation for being haunted by a phantom flock of sheep, which were always heard "baaing" plaintively before a big storm. Animal Ghosts Or, Animal Hauntings and the Hereafter
Aren't you a spoiled child, without the childness and the spoiling, to go and write in that plaintive, solemn way about 'help of some connexions of Jane's in Glasgow,' as if you were a desolate orphan Letters and Memorials of Jane Welsh Carlyle
A fitful breeze stirred the pale foliage over her head, now and then showering her with pink petals from the lingering blossoms; from beneath her rose the damp sweet fragrance of soft earth and green grass, nearby a meadow-lark sang plaintively; somewhere a robin called arrogantly to his mate in the nest; from the valley, stretching below the sloping orchard, a violet mist lifted. Red-Robin
Then I heard the red-head chattering and the plaintive mew of the sapsucker.
After making modest progress on the phone, he follows up with a plaintive letter laying out his case in detail.

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We got it going, and after a while out came this rather wonderful, plaintive and poignant sound. Times, Sunday Times
The fasciated honey-eater has loudly called “with a voice that seemed the very sound of happiness”; the leaden flycatcher, often silent but seldom still, has twittered and whispered plaintively; the sun-birds are playing gymnastics among the lemon blossoms, and the centre of activity for butterflies is the red-flowered shrub bordering the wavering path. Tropic Days
If at times the voice of the song is plaintive, that is no more than a reflection of broken homesteads and sweltering emigrant ships. The Irish Mind
The first tune was the Goltrai, a sad plaintive tune for all who died.
It stood near the window; its thick trunk, barkless, with a rotten heart, prevented the light from entering the room; the bent, black branches, devoid of leaves, stretched themselves mournfully and helplessly in the air, and shaking to and fro, they creaked softly, plaintively. The Man Who Was Afraid
And Kuznetsova, with her dark hair and plaintive eyes and sometimes obnoxious laugh, has become a new emblem — an emblem not of suffering, but of anger with the place that Russia has become, a parallel world cordoned off from Europe and the United States that lacks drinkable tap water and a genuinely independent judiciary, and is led by a criminal regime driven by the puniest of ambitions: theft. From Russia, With Self-Loathing
There are shots from the ground of men with blowtorches in surgical masks, while subtitles that plaintively ask, ‘Why are they making me?’
Here these creatures had harnessed the grinding workings of the planets themselves, all to survive, all to call a plaintive note into a still and silent sky. Across The Sea Of Suns
I have many memories of Calum, but the one that lingers most hauntingly in my mind is of him sitting among my family, his dark eyes, unfathomable as they often were, fixed on somewhere high on the wall, while his fingers coaxed that plaintive music from our little squeeze-box. Every living thing
To lure them from the dense woody thickets scattered through the arid open savannas, he used the ultimate bait: the ‘plaintive bleat of a wounded baby buffalo.’
The lawns are luxurious, the sky is blue, and a lone hawk circles above, gives a plaintive cry and wheels away.
They head out in the boat and Sancho starts crying after he hears his donkey braying plaintively.
Dark, muffled organ sets the stage for a plaintive piano line, which is echoed by wordless singing.
Ignoring the plaintive protests, I began to disrobe, assuring myself that a nice, calm bath would be just what I needed.
And the music: not guitars and plaintive harmonicas but the brain-deep electronic thud of rave.
Through the leaves that hid his nest he could see the yellowing vines in the distance, and the meadows where the straked cows were at pasture, filling the silence of the sleeping country-side with their plaintive long-drawn lowing. Jean Christophe: in Paris The Market-Place, Antoinette, the House
To me this children's-song and the fleeting and now plaintive echo of it, as "Voices from Within" -- "_Verso la sera, Di Primavera_" -- in the terrible scene where Strafford learns his doom, is only to be paralleled by the song of Mariana in "Measure for Measure," wherein, likewise, is abduced in one thrilling poignant strain the quintessential part of the tense life of the whole play. Life of Robert Browning
It was only when she started being plaintive and forlorn that we returned to her.
When Clive wouldn't go, she became plaintive and reproachful. SPLITTING
His thick, plaintive voice sounded as though it rose from the earth. Times, Sunday Times
About two hours before daybreak you will hear the red monkey moaning as though in deep distress; the houtou, a solitary bird, and only found in the thickest recesses of the forest, distinctly articulates "houtou, houtou," in a low and plaintive tone an hour before sunrise; the maam whistles about the same hour; the hannaquoi, pataca and maroudi announce his near approach to the eastern horizon, and the parrots and paroquets confirm his arrival there. Wanderings in South America
Possibly picking up the scent of her young, she let out a high - pitched, plaintive whine.
The elder man spoke in a weak, plaintive tone, constantly stopping to wheeze and gasp for breath.
The songbirds had returned, but their calls sounded ever so plaintive and piteous.
The cathedral is crowned by a large golden statue of Mary looking up, with her arms plaintively moving out from her body.
The songbirds had returned, but their calls sounded ever so plaintive and piteous.
Four decades later, that music still holds sway, sounding its plaintive strains of influence, some kind of persisting technicolor musica sacra that makes an appearance, now and then, in my poet's head as I compose. Michele Somerville: A Kitten Mother's Hymn to Chinese Parenting
Seated on the ground they chant a few plaintive words, and end each verse with the prolonged sound of a-a, or o-o, or ea-ea-ea — a. Whatever beer is in the house of the deceased, is poured out on the ground with the meal, and all cooking and water pots are broken, as being of no further use. A Popular Account of Dr. Livingstone's Expedition to the Zambesi and Its Tributaries
He would examine their faces with a plaintive'Do you think they have my ear lobes? Times, Sunday Times
Sadness converges into "Sweet," and the plaintive note of longing in the voice of the suppliant is inseparable from the persistent imperative in the reiterated "Be thou. Shelley's Golden Wind: Zen Harmonics in _A Defence of Poetry_ and 'Ode to the WestWind'
Amen -- Amen!" came the deep chorus from the bank, the high, plaintive women's voices undertoned by the masculine bass. Judith of the Cumberlands
The moan was a wordless cry of hunger that drifted to them through the pillars of oak trees, like the plaintive call of a wandering ghost. Rot & Ruin
There are plaintive cries from MSPs about their workload, which, they argue, can only be sustained with their current numbers.
The album opens with gentle acoustic guitar, coupled with plaintive vocals, which soon crashes into a rousing sing-along of a chorus, complete with fuzzy basslines and distorted guitars.
The mood, carried by the winds and strings, is generally plaintive, even melancholy.
Then they made it out against the susurrus of moving air, a plaintive whistle, a strain of melody. A PLAGUE OF ANGELS
When he saw that Madame Delmare was obliged to make an effort to listen to him, he held his peace, and naught could be heard save the innumerable little voices whispering in the burning wood, the plaintive song of the log as it becomes heated and swells, the crackling of the bark as it curls before breaking, and the faint phosphorescent explosions of the alburnum, which emits a bluish flame. Indiana
Whose bright idea was it to call a magazine something plaintive and filled with pathos? Times, Sunday Times
Above this plaintive query is a man's head rendered as a particolored collage of different skin tones, meant, one assumes, to signify diversity.
Or just wander the nearby streets and listen out for a steel guitar or a high, plaintive voice. Times, Sunday Times
There is a refinement of features and an almost plaintive lilt to the voice. Times, Sunday Times
Puss teams up with Humpty Dumpty a creepily epicene ovoid voiced with eerie plaintiveness by Zach Galifianakis to repay an old debt by stealing some magic beans from Jack and Jill. 'Like Crazy': From Cupid's Blunders, Wonders
The denials issuing from Santos are almost pathetic in their plaintive appeal to maintenance of the status quo.
Osmosis Part 1 is a wheeling, plaintively calling piece with restrained, squeezed-chord electronics from Frisell.
His quick brushwork fits the scale of this painting, and the figure's plaintive expression is personally revealing, engaging and convincing.
Then, the howling in the trees was their plaintive cries for help.
All day long, the tailorbirds forage for worms to feed their chick, which often turns out to be a plaintive cuckoo that's been left in their nest.
The plaintive cry of kids playing in their streets and gardens for many years has been ‘We want our ball back.’
Mr. Licitra is a protégé of one of the exemplary postwar Verdi stylists, Carlo Bergonzi, and he has that great tenor's unforced elegance of line, command of mezza voce and the capacity to adjust the timbre of his voice to suit the requisite emotion, from a stentorian, almost baritone thickness that promises a great Otello one day, to the reedy plaintiveness of La Traviata 's Alfredo. Is Licitra Tomorrow's Tenor? The Heir Apparent Appraised
They lay on the firm sands, listening to the plaintive cry of the seagulls.
They lay on the firm sands, listening to the plaintive cry of the seagulls.
The great philanthropist, in other words, is financed by mere mortals who stupidly bear their taxes without so much as a plaintive bleat.
Aside from resorting to plaintive cries and groans, in the first half there was little cause for the Tartan Army to exercise their vocal chords.
Whose muse, whose cornemuse, sounds with such plaintive sweetness from Roundabout Papers
When Clive wouldn't go, she became plaintive and reproachful. SPLITTING
The plaintive call of the bird can be heard most evenings in the area.
I think that last line in anon 9: 57's comment was the result of incomplete editing, but I like the plaintive little echo it makes. What does this make the future look like?
What about me?" came a plaintive voice.
The moody, minimal, electronica of Natja and the gentle strumming of Diving Horses (with Dot Allison's plaintive, spine-tingling vocals) are the same; demanding repeated listening.
`I was waiting for the sound of a plaintive violin, followed by the strains of a Hollywood heavenly choir. THE HARDIE INHERITANCE
His thick, plaintive voice sounded as though it rose from the earth. Times, Sunday Times
As I neared home I heard a weak and plaintive female voice coming from above saying ‘Excuse me’.
Crunchy, rattling beats are generic and hollow, the plaintive horns a trifle saccharine, and the piano motifs, dreamy and slender, have something distinctly Walt Disney about them.
On the steps I stood still and looked round: long storm-clouds were creeping heavily over the grey sky; a dark-brown bush was writhing in the wind, and murmuring plaintively; the yellow grass helplessly and forlornly bowed down to the earth; flocks of thrushes were fluttering in the mountain-ashes among the bright, flame-coloured clusters of berries. The Jew and other stories
The organ of the Latin monks, the cymbals of the Abyssinian priest, the voice of the Greek caloyer, the prayer of the solitary Armenian, the plaintive accents of the Palestine or the Holy Land From the Earliest Period to the Present Time
He telephoned Yorkshire Television to seek explanations and advice, demanding plaintively in a guttural accent.
For he now lived inside the words of Omar, the ghost's plaintive smile staved his soul of its inexpiable guilt. The Sanchez Ghost
The very birds seemed to shun these wastes, and no wonder, since they had an easy method of escaping from them; — at least I only heard the monotonous and plaintive cries of the lapwing and curlew, which my companions denominated the peasweep and whaup. Rob Roy
Norburn and Taylor belong to the subtle school: muted but plaintive accompaniment counterpointing a singing voice which is both expressive and intimate; occasionally dramatic but never melodramatic.
From a whooshing, gurgling still comes the ringing, plaintive and mournful.
I break away only to hear its plaintive cries through the rest of my visit.
On 'The Bird and Phoenix', he achieves an impressionistic, plaintive tone on flute.
Last year's plaintive wails about the attacks on A Beautiful Mind are child's play in comparison.
This squeaky cabinet door sounds so much like Chewbacca's plaintive wail that I'm left wondering if it isn't the source of the original foley effect. Boing Boing
We could imagine the plaintive call of curlews just back from some salty estuary and the solitary piping of a dunlin, seemingly lost in all that bogland waste. Country diary: Langsett, Peak District
The plaintive cry "Don't let the Government get its hands on my Medicare," might be apocryphal, but it highlights the vacuousness of a political movement that is built on deliberate denial by Americans of their own responsibility for the straits in which we find ourselves. David Paul: The Problem Is Not Jon Stewart
It was little wonder that he finished his letter home on a plaintive note. VOYAGES OF DELUSION: The Search for the North West Passage in the Age of Reason
An unshowy mastery of empathetic guitar-lines lends depth and variety to the rawness: shattering echoes, sinister decayed sputterings, plaintive refrains.
And at once I heard something to which I had paid no attention before: that is, the plaintive whining of the telegraph wires. The Schoolmistress and other stories
the last note of the song rang out plaintively
Sometimes on clear, soft nights, when the moon came out all splendid and the "peepers" sang so plaintively in the Hollow, the boy's heart would fill and grow enormous in his chest with the intolerable sadness he felt. The Best Short Stories of 1917 and the Yearbook of the American Short Story
The last note of the song rang out plaintively.
The fasciated honey-eater has loudly called “with a voice that seemed the very sound of happiness”; the leaden flycatcher, often silent but seldom still, has twittered and whispered plaintively; the sun-birds are playing gymnastics among the lemon blossoms, and the centre of activity for butterflies is the red-flowered shrub bordering the wavering path. Tropic Days
He is neither funny enough nor plaintive enough. Times, Sunday Times
The moaning had stopped-soft, gently expulsive sounds, like a distant, plaintive fog horn. Genellan- Planetfall
I heard no other sound; but when the lull came, there was the wash of a heavy river, or a crack as of artillery that told of landslips, or the plaintive cry of the peesweep as it rose in the air, trying to entice the waters away from its nest. The Little Minister
Then, after every other verse, he would repeat, with a pause: "Tibi soli peccavi et malum coram te feci… He uttered the words plaintively, sighing profoundly and weeping, and moved with such a lofty idea of God and of His infinite sanctity that the Brother infirmarian was siezed with a holy dread. New issue of "Catholic"
It is a kind of accordeon that the peasants pick plaintively in the doorways of their toubas. The Secret of the Night
`I was waiting for the sound of a plaintive violin, followed by the strains of a Hollywood heavenly choir. THE HARDIE INHERITANCE
When they fly up, they make plaintive calls, and one sees their bright white underside. Times, Sunday Times
Played with a plaintive acoustic edge, it's even more heart-rending than the original.
The boys nearest the dragonet tried to anticipate his direction, hoping to Impress him, but he lurched out of their immediate circle, staggering across the sands, his call plaintive, desperate until the next group of boys turned. Dragon Drums
The ace guitar playing and tone are there, plus that plaintive voice. The Sun
Long ago we knew her as an unworldly girl, whose peachblow coloring gave to her face its chief beauty, although her plaintive blue eyes and smooth brown hair called forth a certain protective faith in her simplicity and goodness. The Love Affairs of an Old Maid
On sweet Texas nites like tonite, it is said you can hear its plaintive howl.
On delicate feet they tripped from the road, the young ones uttering their plaintive bleats.
Legend has it that the bridge got its name from the plaintive cries of the prisoners as they were escorted across it.
The show is packed full of stirring anthems, plaintive laments and unforgettable love songs sung by a first-class cast and backed by the Lyric Opera Orchestra.
There was a plaintive cry from across the hall. Times, Sunday Times
You could definitely hear their plaintive laments.
A lone cello holds a plaintive note under acoustic strumming as Rouse intones in a delicate, flaky voice: ‘It's a great world.’
I opened it and the plaintive song played automatically, surprising me.
The chewink in his harlequin suit of black, white, and chestnut varies his sharp and cheerful "Chewink" with a musical little strain, "Do-fah, fah-fah-fah-fah," and one of the white-throated sparrows now and then stops feeding and flies up to a hazel twig to give his sweet and plaintive little "pea-a-body, peabody, peabody. Some Spring Days in Iowa
Akka from Kebnekaise! they cried in plaintive tones. Further Adventures of Nils
Later this week the financial coffers of this small circulation but widely read magazine will be swelled by a plaintive advert.
It is a plaintive, understated effort infused with dolour and an air of vulnerability.
I suppose it was because Wendy knew this that her last words to him were these rather plaintive ones.
They bemoaned their failure to pick up English as fast as their children could, plaintively chorusing, ‘Spanish is written the way you say it!’
As the drums of war grow louder, so do the plaintive cries of the Irish neutrality lobby.
At its close the chorus of welcome resumes, and the scene ends with a ritornelle of a plaintive kind, foreboding the sorrow which is fast approaching. The Standard Oratorios Their Stories, Their Music, And Their Composers
It's not unusual to overhear a plaintive ‘what exactly is a chipotle?’
A mixture of the everyday and the grotesque, they read at times like plaintive notes from a boarding school, from a child who fears she has been forgotten.
Then her plaintive voice faded. Nemesis: The Battle for Japan, 194445
The only sounds he utters are an occasional clicking cherup, and now and then, with a plaintive cadence, he seems to speak the word _pewee_. The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, No. 14, December 1858
PLAINTIVE siren wails as a government unit , invisible in the darkness, patrols.
Rodgers stood impassively in his technical area as his newly promoted side took the game to City while Roberto Mancini, all clenched fists, bended knees and plaintive cries to the bench, reflected the agitated state of the home crowd. Brendan Rodgers remains confident of passing Premier League test | Andy Hunter
The last note of the song rang out plaintively.
We could imagine the plaintive call of curlews just back from some salty estuary and the solitary piping of a dunlin, seemingly lost in all that bogland waste. Country diary: Langsett, Peak District
‘I'm lost,’ she tells a policeman plaintively and then she sings a song so beautifully she is given a currant bun as a reward.
Elaine met Sam's eyes, made a plaintive moue, and let herself be swept into the building, since there seemed to be no alternative.
There is a refinement of features and an almost plaintive lilt to the voice. Times, Sunday Times
All the poems centered about the poetess' individual fortunes and displayed tragic scenes and emotions which represented the principles of "poems emblem plaintiveness " by Confucius.
Patriotism and the beauties of external nature were the favourite subjects of his muse, which, as if premonished of his early fate, loved to sing in plaintive strains. The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume II. The Songs of Scotland of the past half century
It is a plaintive ode to the joys of platonic love and companionship.
But he is always cheerful, in spite of his so-called plaintive note, from which he gets one of his names, and always amiable. Birds in the Bush
This evening, when I got in from work, sitting on the back step and mewling plaintively was a small cat with a black splodge on his chin, and all his fur intact.
This plaintive cry came from a number of sources, so we are attempting to provide enlightenment.
Many of the smart-growth complaints I've fielded have this same plaintive sound.
GRACE: In a civil case the plaintive is the one accusing someone of something. CNN Transcript Nov 9, 2004
My wife was expecting this to be boring but was pleasantly surprised which resulted in the plaintive cry of why wasn't science like that when she was at school.
To a soundtrack created by the whales themselves—via Roger Payne's groundbreaking and album-charting recording of the plaintive song of the humpback whale—we moved slowly towards cetacean manumission.
The former is the group's raison d' etre - its wordless doo-wop chorus gently fluttering underneath the plaintive expression of individual empowerment that had been Sly's credo up to that point.
His songs can be wonderfully simple; a solo piano piece called Refugees had plaintive charm. Times, Sunday Times
`I don't know," Iris wobbled unhelpfully, and, returning to basics, asked plaintively again, `Where am I? TO HIS JUST DESSERTS
Renee DeCarlo it was quick, it was quiet, it was fast; a blue view of small proportions .... gaze inside a day when the sun shines a bright blue blessing of clear skies and the ease of breathing is all but forgotten. fixed on the soft buzz of an upward motion the hem of his slightly frayed blue jeans wrapped around my imagination and so began the baffling alchemy of apteral aeronautics once again pulling the strings of a sleepy distracted life. sensing a draw between yes and no the arousing sound of crimson fire and gritty dust stung my watery eyes creating a revolving revolution amidst the stomping of unified feet. powerless to refuse the motion of forward my numb bare feet shuffled to the plaintive chant echoed in the ancient ritual of fire. attending to the tribal embrace the bombardment of countless voices revealed hidden stories in a mesh of rattling shells drenching the crowded air. The Clarity of Night
You only need crawl along at 20mph in first and listen to that hollow, plaintive cry from the exhausts. Times, Sunday Times
The next morning, figure my horror! to hear a plaintive 'mew' outside my door. Selections from the Letters of Geraldine Endsor Jewsbury to Jane Welsh Carlyle
Anyway, I decided to give this l'il pussy cat that I met recently a chance to let all my readers hear her plaintive meow.
Since Lennox isn't known as a diehard lefty, there must be some other reason for her plaintive pleading, leading Kirchick to rub his baby chin and muse, "So one wonders what prompts her currnet, passionate antipathy towards Israel. At the Corner of Hollywood and Whine: James Wolcott
She invites the audience to sing along to a plaintive, hymnal Rivers of Babylon.
A plaintive anthem for all us wallflowers who hate the enforced sociability of parties and would rather hide out of the way close to the fridge.
So it's aggressive, witty, fantastical, plaintive - and bogus. Times, Sunday Times
Two beautiful arias for tenor ( "Deposuit potentes de sede") and alto ( "Esurientes implevit bonis") follow, the latter being exquisitely tender in its expression, and lead to the terzetto ( "Suscepit Israel puerum suum: recordatus misericordiæ suæ"), arranged in chorale form, and very plaintive and even melancholy in style. The Standard Oratorios Their Stories, Their Music, And Their Composers
American white people perpetrated upon defenseless Negroes; and it was "Old England" that with bateless breath listened to the plaintive cry of Ida B. Wells, the heroine of her race. Africa and African Methodism.
The fasciated honey-eater has loudly called "with a voice that seemed the very sound of happiness"; the leaden flycatcher, often silent but seldom still, has twittered and whispered plaintively; the sun-birds are playing gymnastics among the lemon blossoms, and the centre of activity for butterflies is the red-flowered shrub bordering the wavering path. Tropic Days
What vivid memory of past misery in the awful portrait of his impenitent self, already referred to -- on which the mind dwells in silence, while the musical accompaniment (as directed by the "selah") touches some plaintive minor or grating discord! The Life of David As Reflected in His Psalms
Then, after every other verse, he would repeat, with a pause: "Tibi soli peccavi et malum coram te feci… He uttered the words plaintively, sighing profoundly and weeping, and moved with such a lofty idea of God and of His infinite sanctity that the Brother infirmarian was siezed with a holy dread. New issue of "Catholic"
It's time for reinvention, to move away a little from the plaintive vocal and acoustic guitar. Times, Sunday Times
The zither is a melancholy little instrument; in range of expression it is to the harp what the winchat is to the thrush; or to the violin, what that bird is to the nightingale; yet few instruments are so exciting: here and there along these mountain valleys you may hear a Tyrolese maid set her voice to its plaintive thin tones; but when the strings are swept madly there is mad dancing; it catches at the nerves. Vittoria — Volume 5
The “symphony” involved tuba, trumpet, oboe, violin, percussion and a speaker who read the Lord’s Prayer in plaintive and dramatic Russian. Bang on a Piano All-Stars
By 1784 he was describing in plaintive terms how the English were constantly making new discoveries: ‘The whole of nature is unceasingly studied, requested, worked upon, fecundated, husbanded.’
They head out in the boat and Sancho starts crying after he hears his donkey braying plaintively.
A plaintive shirtless man, with cupped hands extended in front of him, holds the two halves of a broken eggshell.
From a distant mountain came the plaintive notes of a shepherd's pipe.
They lay on the firm sands, listening to the plaintive cry of the seagulls.
Anyway, I decided to give this l'il pussy cat that I met recently a chance to let all my readers hear her plaintive meow.
In a copse near where she stood a little bird was busy with her fledglings, and from a meadow came the plaintive bleat of a late yeaned lamb. Lancashire Idylls (1898)
Then, after every other verse, he would repeat, with a pause: "Tibi soli peccavi et malum coram te feci… He uttered the words plaintively, sighing profoundly and weeping, and moved with such a lofty idea of God and of His infinite sanctity that the Brother infirmarian was siezed with a holy dread. New issue of "Catholic"
It will only plead at first to my friends in the still conscious plaintiveness of a young and unhardened beggar. Clarissa Harlowe
The miscreant's neighbours plaintively tell Ferris they can no longer continue to live in the atmosphere of menace that the young man seems to generate.
His plaintive, soulful voice floats over deep roots grooves, sweet chord changes and juicy horn stabs; the production is warm, deep and crisp.
He is neither funny enough nor plaintive enough. Times, Sunday Times
The show is packed full of stirring anthems, plaintive laments and unforgettable love songs sung by a first-class cast and backed by the Lyric Opera Orchestra.
Antimony cast a scornful eye over the wrecked interior, the ripped curtains blowing plaintively with a weak breeze.
And I hear afar him who repeats from his seat, "What's the use of worrying?" in all possible tones, commanding a pitiful, sometimes like a prophet and anon like one shipwrecked; he metrifies with his cry the chorus of choking and plaintive voices that try so terribly to extol their suffering. Under Fire: the story of a squad
Human nature is not so stony-hearted as to hear thy plaintive tale and catalogue of sorrows, without shedding a tear. Hecuba
In this part of America there is a singular bird, called whipper-will, or whip-poor-will, which has obtained its name from the plaintive noise that it makes. Travels in North America, From Modern Writers With Remarks and Observations; Exhibiting a Connected View of the Geography and Present State of that Quarter of the Globe
But as soon as the bird is seen flying, its whole appearance changes; the long pointed wings, so different from those in the gallinaceous order, the irregular manner of flight, and plaintive cry uttered at the moment of rising, recall the idea of a snipe. Journal of researches into the geology and natural history of the various countries visited by H.M.S. Beagle
And another plaintive dawn bugle reveille, executed off-key but with authoritarian certainty, all but muffled by the pounding marching drums from the cliff-side army barracks overlooking the beach. Hidden time revisited - Puerto Escondido
A pair of kestrels kept the grouse quiet but I didn't see any merlins though perhaps heard the plaintive cry of the other fashionable bird hereabouts, namely the golden plover.
A plaintive whinny echoed from a damp, narrow cave as we edged unsteadily through the entrance.
A single masterly stroke sufficed to draw the cylindrical stalk from one joint to another, or the pointed leaves which are so quivering with life that we seem to hear the plaintive voice of the wind "combed," as the Chinese writings express it, "by the reeds. Chinese Painters A Critical Study
It is a plaintive, understated effort infused with dolour and an air of vulnerability.
The album opens with gentle acoustic guitar, coupled with plaintive vocals, which soon crashes into a rousing sing-along of a chorus, complete with fuzzy basslines and distorted guitars.
Photo Gallery: Whales The plaintive song of the humpback whale can travel for great distances underwater.
But to Kate she was very kind, caressive, speaking English in a plaintive faded voice. The Plumed Serpent
First her sweet voice in plaintive accents chains* Canto I
The iris of her large dark eye had the melting mezzotinto, which remains the last vestige of African ancestry, and gives that plaintive expression, so often observed, and so appropriate to that docile and injured race. Clotel; or, The President's Daughter: A Narrative of Slave Life in the United States. By William Wells Brown, A Fugitive Slave, Author of "Three Years in Europe." With a Sketch of the Author's Life

How To Use Plaintive In A Sentence

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