• enPR: plīt, IPA: /plaɪt/

plight (plural plights)

1. A dire or unfortunate situation. [from 14th c.]
   • 2005, Lesley Brown, translating Plato, Sophist, 243c:

     Though we say we are quite clear about it and understand when someone uses the expression, unlike that other expression, maybe we're in the same plight with regard to them both.

2. (now rare) A (neutral) condition or state. [from 14th c.]
   • 1603, Michel de Montaigne, chapter 8, in John Florio, transl., The Essayes, […], book II, printed at London: By Val[entine] Simmes for Edward Blount […], OCLC 946730821 ↗:

     although hee live in as good plight and health as may be, yet he chafeth, he scoldeth, he brawleth, he fighteth, he sweareth, and biteth, as the most boistrous and tempestuous master of France […].

3. (obsolete) Good health. [14th-19th c.]
   • 1590, Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene, III.7:

     All wayes shee sought him to restore to plight, / With herbs, with charms, with counsel, and with teares […].

• German: Misere, Notlage, Bedrängnis
• Italian: difficoltà, brutta situazione
• Spanish: aprieto, tribulación

• Russian: положе́ние

plight (plural plights)

1. (now chiefly dialectal) Responsibility for ensuing consequences; risk; danger; peril.
2. (now chiefly dialectal) An instance of danger or peril; a dangerous moment or situation.
3. (now chiefly dialectal) Blame; culpability; fault; wrong-doing; sin; crime.
4. (now chiefly dialectal) One's office; duty; charge.
5. (archaic) That which is exposed to risk; that which is plighted or pledged; security; a gage; a pledge.
   • c. 1603–1606, William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of King Lear”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies: Published According to the True Originall Copies (First Folio), London: Printed by Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, OCLC 606515358 ↗, [Act I, scene i]:

     Haply, when I shall wed,
     That lord whose hand must take my plight shall carry
     Half my love with him, half my care and duty

plight (plights, present participle plighting; past and past participle plighted)

1. (transitive, now rare) To expose to risk; to pledge.
2. (transitive) Specifically, to pledge (one's troth etc.) as part of a marriage ceremony.
3. (reflexive) To promise (oneself) to someone, or to do something.
   • 1992, Hilary Mantel, A Place of Greater Safety, Harper Perennial 2007, p. 226:

     I ask what I have done to deserve it, one daughter hobnobbing with radicals and the other planning to plight herself to a criminal.

plight (plights, present participle plighting; past and past participle plighted)

1. (obsolete) To weave; to braid; to fold; to plait.
   • 1670, John Milton, The History of Britain, […] , London: Printed by J.M. for James Alleſtry, […] , OCLC 78038412 ↗, Book II, page 67 ↗:

     ſhe wore a plighted Garmend of divers colours,

plight (plural plights)

1. (obsolete) A network; a plait; a fold; rarely a garment.

   • Many a folded plight.