Other forms: plaintiffs
In a civil court case the plaintiff is the person who started it — the one bringing the complaint. The other side is the defendant.
This is legal vocabulary and it lives almost nowhere else, so meet it and file it. Two cautions. English courts now more often say claimant, while American courts kept plaintiff, so which you meet depends on where you are reading. And do not mix it up with plaintive, an ordinary word meaning sad and complaining in tone — a plaintive voice.
1nounplaintiffThe person who brings a case against somebody in a civil court.
“The plaintiff is asking for damages of ninety thousand.”
synonyms: claimant, complainant
plaintiff is a kind of party in a court case.
PLAIN-tiff → the one with the comPLAINt
A man at the front of the court unrolls a list of complaints that reaches the floor.
hooks ontocomplaint
From Old French plaintif, meaning complaining — the same word that gave us plaintive and complaint. The plaintiff is, quite literally, the one doing the complaining.
Old French
plaintif — complaining”; as a noun, “one who complains, a plaintiff
Middle English
plaintif
English, today
plaintiff
From Middle English plaintif, from Anglo-Norman -, from Old French plaintif (“complaining”; as a noun, “one who complains, a plaintiff”) from the verb plaindre. a doublet of plaintive.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA