Complainant

How to spell complainant

11 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce complainant

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does complainant mean?

1. nounThe person who brings a formal complaint or legal action, especially in a civil or disciplinary matter.

Complainant in a sentence

• The complainant filed the lawsuit after months of unpaid wages.

• The tribunal heard evidence from both the complainant and the accused company.

Where does complainant come from?

Language of origin: French

This word descends from the Latin verb plangere, which literally meant 'to beat' and especially 'to beat one's breast in grief', the gesture that became a byword for loud lamentation. Joined with the intensifying prefix com-, it produced complangere, 'to bewail or lament strongly'. The verb passed into Old French as complaindre, meaning 'to lament' or 'to express grievance', and English took up 'complain' in the 1300s. The noun 'complainant', for the person who lodges a formal grievance or brings a legal action, was built later on the French model using the agent suffix -ant, 'one who does'. The same plangere root still echoes in 'plangent', a literary word for a deep mournful sound, and remembering that the word ends in -ant (a doer) rather than -ent helps fix the spelling.

How the word is built

• com- (intensive, from Latin com-)
• plain (from plangere: to lament, to beat the breast in grief)
• -ant (noun suffix: one who does)