plaintiff
/ˈpleɪntɪf/noun
plaintiff is spelled P-L-A-I-N-T-I-F-F. The wrong spelling people search most is plantiff: about 610 Bing searches a month in the United States (September 2025 to August 2026), about 2 in 10 of all searches for the word. Plaintiff is a noun meaning “A party bringing a suit in civil law against a defendant; accuser”. The plural of plaintiff is plaintiffs.
How many letters and syllables are in plaintiff?
| Letters | 9: P-L-A-I-N-T-I-F-F |
|---|---|
| Syllables | 2 (from its American pronunciation) |
| In writing | 3.5 times per million words; the 13,897th most frequent word form |
| Wrong spellings searched | 1; the most searched, plantiff, about 610 Bing searches a month (all of them) |
Sources: letters and syllables from the English Wiktionary's hyphenation or pronunciation and the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary; written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media); Bing searches in the United States: the average month from September 2025 to August 2026 (Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, read September 30, 2026).
How do you spell plaintiff?
Plaintiff is spelled P-L-A-I-N-T-I-F-F. One wrong spelling is searched or written often enough to measure; together they are about 2 in 10 of the searches for plaintiff in either form.
Bing searches in the United States: the average month from September 2025 to August 2026 (Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, read September 30, 2026). Wrong spellings are taken from Wiktionary entries tagged "misspelling" and its obsolete or nonstandard forms, Wikipedia's Lists of common misspellings and the codespell dictionary, then measured. The proofreader's marks show the change that corrects each one.
How common is plaintiff?
Plaintiff appears 3.5 times per million words in written English, the 13,897th most frequent word form in the list.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
How do you pronounce plaintiff?
- /ˈpleɪntɪf/
Plaintiff has 2 syllables (counted from its American pronunciation in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary).
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: LL-Q1860_(eng)-Vealhurl-plaintiff.wav, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
Forms of plaintiff
- plaintiffs plural
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
What does plaintiff mean?
The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).
noun
- 1
UKA party bringing a suit in civil law against a defendant; accuser.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How do you abbreviate plaintiff?
Wiktionary records one abbreviation of plaintiff: plf..
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Plaintiff in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
In the sense party bringing a suit in civil law against a defendant:
| Language | Words |
|---|---|
| French | demandeur, demandeuse, plaignant, plaignante |
| German | Kläger, Klägerin |
| Portuguese | querelante, requerente, acusação, promotoria |
| Spanish | demandante, querellante, denunciante, denunciador, litigante, pleiteante |
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.
Where does plaintiff come from?
From Middle English plaintif, from Anglo-Norman, from Old French plaintif (“complaining”; as a noun, “one who complains, a plaintiff”) from the verb plaindre. Doublet of plaintive.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).