plangent
English
WOTD – 15 May 2012
Etymology
From Latin plangēns, present participle of plangō (“I beat; I lament”).
Pronunciation
- IPA(key): /ˈplænd͡ʒənt/
Audio (UK) (file)
- Rhymes: -ændʒənt
Adjective
plangent (comparative more plangent, superlative most plangent)
- Having a loud, mournful sound.
- 1879, Robert Louis Stevenson, “chapter 1”, in The Story of a Lie:
- [S]how him a refined or powerful face, let him hear a plangent or a penetrating voice […] and his mind was instantaneously awakened.
- 1919, Ronald Firbank, Valmouth, Duckworth hardback edition edition, page 49:
- Since mid-day their plangent, disquieting cries had foretold its approach.
- 2013 Sept. 22, Corinna da Fonseca-Wollheim, “Music Review: A Middle East Mourned and Celebrated in Suites”, in New York Times:
- In the lament about the massacre — the work’s second movement — he entered a more urgent register in the high reaches of the cello, but the sense of grief was more plangent than raw, devoid of any real outrage.
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- (rare) Beating, dashing, as waves.
- 1922, Clark Ashton Smith, Desire of Vastness:
- What central sea with plume-plucked midnight strewn,
Plangent to what enormous plenilune
That lifts in silence, hinderless and stark?
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Related terms
- plangency
- plangently
Translations
having a loud mournful sound
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Latin
Verb
plangent
- third-person plural future active indicative of plangō