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The Pillars of the Earth vocabulary
219 vocabulary words, including people, places, music, artists, etc.
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plaintive
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notes:
{adj}
synonyms: lugubrious, dolorous, elegiac ???
► definition
Definition:mournful; melancholy
► uses
Uses:
Seryozha had come upon him in the hall, and had heard him plaintively beg the hall porter to announce him, saying that he and his children had death staring them in the face.
Leo Tolstoy. Anna Karenina (Translated by Constance Garnett)
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She tried to follow me everywhere, and on my next journey out and about it went to my heart to tire her down, and leave her at last, exhausted and calling after me rather plaintively.
H.G. Wells. The Time Machine
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The mockingbirds and the jays, engaged in their old feud for possession of the magnolia tree beneath her window, were bickering, the jays strident, acrimonious, the mockers sweet voiced and plaintive.
Margaret Mitchell. Gone with the Wind (1936)
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that Lizabetha Prokofievna, only stayed with you because you are ill,— if you really are dying— moved by the pity awakened by your plaintive appeal, and that her name, character, and social position place her above all risk of contamination.
Fyodor Dostoyevsky. The Idiot (1887)
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she murmured, as she plaintively contemplated Miss Havisham, "Poor dear soul! Certainly not to be expected to look well, poor thing. The idea!"
Charles Dickens. Great Expectations (1861)
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One could have believed that its whiteness, smoothness, and expanse had at one time crited out rather plaintively for India ink and block lettering.
J.D. Salinger. Franny and Zooey, p.175 (1955)
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