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Plaintive in sentence

32 examples of Plaintive in a sentence

But then I would get these plaintive emails from him when he was at work.
An excellent character study and a find production with little to fault, "OTT" offers three fine performances by a trio of top actors and some plaintive reflections on life and death.
Factor in good and evil in the forms of his his love interest (Watson) and former "mentor" (Wilson) respectively and you have a plaintive drama laced with poignant and delicately humorous moments mingled with the rich scenic beauty of Italy's Lake Como and the intensity of high chess play.
"The Fly," like "The Phantom of the Opera" and "The Hunchback of Notre Dame," shows us a monster who is reduced to a grotesque (and in the case of Brundle, inhuman) appearance, while still endowed with the bare instincts of love, morality, and fear; under increasingly heavy makeup, Goldblum retains his trademark sardonic wit, but it connects with a plaintive sorrow that is truly affecting.
Humorous and plaintive, whimsical and surly, but always romantic, "...Castle" is a chick flick which scored well with males and critics as well.
Undoubtedly an excellent film by film making standards, Mike Leigh puts the audience in the position of having to accept his characters' plaintive existence on faith by not showing the psychodynamics which perpetuate their misery and just giving us the result.
A very well managed film with a good cast and production value and a plodding and plaintive story, this film builds slowly to a crescendo between two horrific incidents.
Clearly, all the bows and plaintive “mea culpas” made by the Pope over the past year to mark the 2000th anniversary of the Birth of Christ, have not satisfied the Patriarch.
In a plaintive soprano accompanied by a cello’s lament, lingering between song and silence, the memory came back to me on Monday morning, the day after the second round of France’s parliamentary election.
As we have seen time and again, Britain’s approach to the Brexit negotiations seems to be nothing more than a mix of wishful thinking, back-peddling, and plaintive requests that the EU bend over backward to help British leaders get out of the mess they have made.
Silent, like sorrowing children, the birds have ceased their song, and only the moorhen's plaintive cry and the harsh croak of the corncrake stirs the awed hush around the couch of waters, where the dying day breathes out her last.
There was a plaintive earnestness in the voice of Miss Singleton that disarmed Frances of all resentment, and the only answer she could make was to hide her burning face between her hands, as she sank back in a chair to conceal her confusion.
He was just as frail, just as plaintive, and he still had that insipid odour of a sick child that had been so repugnant to me previously.
And, in the sky, there are plaintive sighs of despair.
She spoke in this manner for hours together, passing from despair to hope, condemning and then pardoning herself; she assumed the voice, brief and plaintive in turn, of a little sick girl; she flattened herself on the ground and drew herself up again, acting upon all the ideas of humility and pride, of repentance and revolt that entered her head.
The words of the young woman entered her mind, slow and plaintive, as an irritating ditty.
The slow and plaintive words of his wife, and her attitudes of resignation, gradually drove him into blinding fits of anger.
The lion's roar, the fierce wolf's savage howl, the horrid hissing of the scaly snake, the awesome cries of monsters yet unnamed, the crow's ill-boding croak, the hollow moan of wild winds wrestling with the restless sea, the wrathful bellow of the vanquished bull, the plaintive sobbing of the widowed dove, the envied owl's sad note, the wail of woe that rises from the dreary choir of Hell, commingled in one sound, confusing sense, let all these come to aid my soul's complaint, for pain like mine demands new modes of song.
And as the encamisados came along they muttered to themselves in a low plaintive tone.
CHAPTER XXVIIIWHICH TREATS OF THE STRANGE AND DELIGHTFUL ADVENTURE THAT BEFELL THE CURATE AND THE BARBER IN THE SAME SIERRAHappy and fortunate were the times when that most daring knight Don Quixote of La Mancha was sent into the world; for by reason of his having formed a resolution so honourable as that of seeking to revive and restore to the world the long-lost and almost defunct order of knight-errantry, we now enjoy in this age of ours, so poor in light entertainment, not only the charm of his veracious history, but also of the tales and episodes contained in it which are, in a measure, no less pleasing, ingenious, and truthful, than the history itself; which, resuming its thread, carded, spun, and wound, relates that just as the curate was going to offer consolation to Cardenio, he was interrupted by a voice that fell upon his ear saying in plaintive tones:"O God! is it possible I have found a place that may serve as a secret grave for the weary load of this body that I support so unwillingly?
Don Quixote recognised him, and taking his hand he turned to those present and said: "That your worships may see how important it is to have knights-errant to redress the wrongs and injuries done by tyrannical and wicked men in this world, I may tell you that some days ago passing through a wood, I heard cries and piteous complaints as of a person in pain and distress; I immediately hastened, impelled by my bounden duty, to the quarter whence the plaintive accents seemed to me to proceed, and I found tied to an oak this lad who now stands before you, which in my heart I rejoice at, for his testimony will not permit me to depart from the truth in any particular.
The instant she recognised him, with a prolonged plaintive cry drawn from the depths of her heart, she fell backwards fainting, and but for the barber being close by to catch her in his arms, she would have fallen completely to the ground.
For, come, tell me, can there be anything more delightful than to see, as it were, here now displayed before us a vast lake of bubbling pitch with a host of snakes and serpents and lizards, and ferocious and terrible creatures of all sorts swimming about in it, while from the middle of the lake there comes a plaintive voice saying: 'Knight, whosoever thou art who beholdest this dread lake, if thou wouldst win the prize that lies hidden beneath these dusky waves, prove the valour of thy stout heart and cast thyself into the midst of its dark burning waters, else thou shalt not be worthy to see the mighty wonders contained in the seven castles of the seven Fays that lie beneath this black expanse;' and then the knight, almost ere the awful voice has ceased, without stopping to consider, without pausing to reflect upon the danger to which he is exposing himself, without even relieving himself of the weight of his massive armour, commending himself to God and to his lady, plunges into the midst of the boiling lake, and when he little looks for it, or knows what his fate is to be, he finds himself among flowery meadows, with which the Elysian fields are not to be compared.
"Why, there's a ballad that says they put King Rodrigo alive into a tomb full of toads, and adders, and lizards, and that two days afterwards the king, in a plaintive, feeble voice, cried out from within the tomb—They gnaw me now, they gnaw me now,There where I most did sin.
The unfortunate duenna hearing herself thus conjured, by her own fear guessed Don Quixote's and in a low plaintive voice answered, "Senor Don Quixote—if so be you are indeed Don Quixote—I am no phantom or spectre or soul in purgatory, as you seem to think, but Dona Rodriguez, duenna of honour to my lady the duchess, and I come to you with one of those grievances your worship is wont to redress."
'You seem unhappy, Mr. Jingle,' said the lady, in a plaintive voice.
I say,' continued Perker, checking off each position on a different finger, as he laid it down--'I say that nobody but you can rescue her from this den of wretchedness; and that you can only do that, by paying the costs of this suit-- both of plaintive and defendant--into the hands of these Freeman Court sharks.
His performance, therefore, might have been termed very respectable by abler judges than the hermit, especially as the knight threw into the notes now a degree of spirit, and now of plaintive enthusiasm, which gave force and energy to the verses which he sung.
When she disappeared, they heard a plaintive bleating; it was the little goat mourning.
He now had a gentle and plaintive accent which contrasted sadly with the haughty harshness of his features.