plight
1 Americannoun
verb (used with object)
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to pledge (one's troth) in engagement to marry.
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to bind (someone) by a pledge, especially of marriage.
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to give in pledge, as one's word, or to pledge, as one's honor.
noun
verb
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to give or pledge (one's word)
he plighted his word to attempt it
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to promise formally or pledge (allegiance, support, etc)
to plight aid
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to make a promise of marriage
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to give one's solemn promise
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noun
noun
Synonym Usage
See predicament.
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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plightsimple
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plightssimple
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have plightedperfect
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has plightedperfect
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am plightingprogressive
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are plightingprogressive
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is plightingprogressive
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have been plightingperfect progressive
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has been plightingperfect progressive
Past
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plightedsimple
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had plightedperfect
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was plightingprogressive
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were plightingprogressive
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had been plightingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of plight1
First recorded in 1350–1400; Middle English plit “fold, condition, bad condition,” from Anglo-French (cognate with Middle French pleit plait ) “fold, manner of folding, condition”; spelling apparently influenced by plight 2 in obsolete sense “danger”
Origin of plight2
First recorded before 1000; (noun) Middle English; Old English pliht “danger, risk”; cognate with Dutch plicht, German Pflicht “duty, obligation”; (verb) Middle English plighten, Old English plihtan (derivative of the noun) “to endanger, risk, pledge”; cognate with Old High German phlichten “to engage oneself,” Middle Dutch plihten “to guarantee”
Explanation
A plight is a situation that's hard to get out of. Learning about the plight of people trying to rebuild their homes after a devastating earthquake might inspire you to send money to a charity. Plight means predicament. It comes from the word for pleat, which means fold. A plight is a tough bind. You'll usually hear the word plight for groups of people or animals struggling to survive, or struggling for better lives. We talk about the plight of refugees, or the plight of sea birds after an oil spill. An old-fashioned use of plight is for pledge. If you get engaged, you give a plight of your love.
Vocabulary lists containing plight
"Letter from Birmingham Jail" by Martin Luther King, Jr. (1963)
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In a Pickle: Words for When You're in Trouble
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Beowulf
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
Chinese users have refused to back down though, with some turning to advocates abroad to air Wang Wang's plight.
From BBC ● Jul. 22, 2026
Devoted to the first national congress of the Chinese Communist Party, inside the museum’s quiet, low-lying stone building all is frugality and concern for the plight of the downtrodden.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 17, 2026
Abernathy’s plight is familiar to many job seekers, especially younger ones who’ve entered the labor force in the past few years.
From MarketWatch ● Jul. 11, 2026
Survivors and victims' loved ones are threatening to block streets to draw official attention to their plight.
From Barron's ● Jun. 27, 2026
He moved on to other subjects, but it was clear that his heart and his mind were aligned with the plight of the condemned and those facing unjust treatment in jails and prisons.
From "Just Mercy" by Bryan Stevenson
But they also meticulously track the chimps' friendships and social plights.
From Barron's ● Jan. 15, 2026
The intended effect is that we’re witnessing the plights of what might as well be actual people.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jan. 8, 2026
Also of note, he said, is that these detained travelers' plights stems from their entering the country with visa waivers rather than tourist visas.
From Salon ● Mar. 14, 2025
The scenes with Johnny and his buddies are handled in a perfunctory manner that made it hard for me to invest in their plights or paths.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 11, 2024
If we were truly going to emulate the Freedom Riders, then our writing must transcend the walls of Room 203 and our individual plights and become a universal message.
From "The Freedom Writers Diary" by The Freedom Writers
William Shakespeare wrote in "King Lear" that "Time shall unfold what plighted cunning hides. Who cover faults, at last shame them derides."
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 27, 2017
Well, in the words of Cordelia, “Time shall unfold what plighted cunning hides.”
From Washington Post ● May 28, 2017
The two plighted their troth in what was destined to become one of the strangest and most durable extracurricular alliances of modern times.
From Time Magazine Archive
Added a Filipino columnist: "Formosa has come to mean to the free peoples of Asia one thing: the worth of America's plighted word to little nations."
From Time Magazine Archive
Then he concluded, “But I flatter myself that some respect will be paid to the public interest, and to the plighted faith of the government.”
From "Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation" by Joseph J. Ellis
Yet plighting his troth to the party may have worried him more than he allowed.
From The Guardian ● May 7, 2010
He doesn't help his case by plighting his troth at every opportunity.
From Time Magazine Archive
While the Asian giants were plighting their renewed affections, top Soviet officials continued their efforts to repair the 25-year-old schism between Moscow and Beijing.
From Time Magazine Archive
Folk Singer-Pacifist Joan Baez, 27, got married last week in a ceremony that was as much a demonstration of dissent as a plighting of troth.
From Time Magazine Archive
Leibel lovingly passed the bottle of ginger-beer and Rose took a sip, with a beautiful air of plighting troth, understood only of those two.
From The King of Schnorrers Grotesques and Fantasies by Zangwill, Israel
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
