Make Your Point > Archived Issues > PLIGHT

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pronounce PLIGHT: Say it "PLITE." To hear it, click here. connect this word to others: From xkcd.com, a couple in a mid-flight plight: I trust you're not currently breaking up with someone in an unsteerable vehicle crawling with giant spiders. But if you're in any other kind of jam, pinch, scrape, pickle, tight spot, or sticky situation, you might use any of those chill, relaxed words or phrases to describe it. And if you need to get formal, you might pick a word like dilemma, or predicament, or qu__m___, or qu__d__y. Or today's word: plight. (To reveal any word with blanks, give it a click.) definition: Our word "plight" comes from Old English and first meant "battle" and "danger." For awhile--but not anymore--it also meant "to take a risk" or "to take a pledge that involves risk or danger." In old or old-fashioned texts, you might still see phrases like "a plight of faith." Today, a plight is a struggle or situation that's bad, unlucky, stressful, painful, and/or difficult. grammatical bits: Part of speech: Noun, the countable kind. We pretty much always use the singular: "She described the plight of the sea turtles;" "He told me about his plight;" "We listened to the refugees explain their plight." The plural is "plights."  Other forms:  None are common. how to use it: This word is common and formal.  It's most often quite serious: "He spoke tearfully about his plight;" "The diary reveals Anne's plight as her family went into hiding;" "Whoever wrote this has no knowledge of the plight of homeless people." We talk about being aware of, sensitive to, or sympathetic to someone's plight. Or unaware, insensitive, or unsympathetic. And since a plight is a situation, and since we tend to treat situations as grammatically three-dimensional, we could say that someone is in a plight (but not at or on a plight). examples: "I sat there in the police station—arrested for suspicion of grand theft auto, a plausible suspect for carjacking or murder—and debated whether I should call my parents or go to jail... I needed someone sympathetic to my plight."    — Trevor Noah, Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood, 2016 "She was half­watching a PBS special on the plight of wolves in Minnesota.*"    — Khaled Hosseini, The Kite Runner, 2003 *Happily, the plight of Minnesota's wolves has improved: "Wise and careful management under the Endangered Species Act allowed those remaining wolves to flourish and repopulate northern Wisconsin and Michigan's upper peninsula" (Minnesota Department of Natural Resources). has this page helped you understand "plight"? Awesome, I'm glad it helped! Thanks for letting me know! If you have any questions about this word, please message me at Liesl@HiloTutor.com. study it: Explain the meaning of "plight" without saying "troublesome circumstances" or "rough state of affairs." try it out: When we look at the history of the word "plight," knowing it once meant "battle," it makes sense to think of your plight as a kind of battle you're fighting. A battle you didn't even choose to enter. If you and a friend are both battling the same problem, you might say that you're "fighting the same battle." Or "sharing your plight." My sister and I shared a plight in high school. We both have the kind of hair that frizzes up into hideous poofy waves when it rains, which it always does in Florida. But we helped each other fight that battle, trying different styling products. (That was decades ago. She now reports from Florida that the secret to great hair in rainy weather is to stop caring what your hair looks like.) As plights go, ours wasn't severe. Plights are generally more dire, more serious than that, with more at stake than feeling ugly among your teen peers. But I don't want to be downer here, y'all. Talk about a time you shared a plight with someone. Did it make the battling easier or more effective in any way? If you like, use this space to write. (To save your work, copy and paste it into an email or a document.) before you review, play: Try to spend 20 seconds or more on the game below. Don’t skip straight to the review—first, let your working memory empty out. Our game for March is "Yup, that's a real word." Check out the definition of a silly-sounding word--yes, a real one, from the Oxford English Dictionary--and see if you can come up with the word itself. To see the answer, scroll all the way down. Here's an example: "This three-syllable noun ending in the -ship suffix (as in 'friendship' and 'fellowship') means 'skill in traversing snow.'" The answer is "snowmanship." (Yup, that’s a real word!) Try this last one today: Sharing a prefix with "outdo" and "outsmart," this three-syllable verb means "to shine brighter, to shimmer with greater intensity, to surpass in splendor." review this word: 1. A near opposite of PLIGHT is A. SETTLEMENT. B. EASY STREET. C. SLIM PICKINGS. 2. We should pick the word "plight" to label a hard situation that reminds us of a _____. A. hidden trap B. murky swamp C. bloody battle Answers to review questions: 1. B 2. C Answer to the game question: This probably can't be done to Tinkerbell, Ke$ha, or Elton John: "outglitter." a final word: I hope you're enjoying Make Your Point. It's made with love. I'm Liesl Johnson, a reading and writing tutor on a mission to explore, illuminate, and celebrate words. From my blog:    36 ways to study words.    Why we forget words, & how to remember them.    How to use sophisticated words without being awkward. To be a sponsor and include your ad in an issue, please contact me at Liesl@HiloTutor.com. Disclaimer: When I write definitions, I use plain language and stick to the words' common, useful applications. If you're interested in authoritative and multiple definitions of words, I encourage you to check a dictionary. Also, because I'm American, I stick to American English when I share words' meanings, usage, and pronunciations; these elements sometimes vary across world Englishes.