plaint

Pronounced: plaint, noun

Notes: I know some other forms of this word, but not this word

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Yesterday’s word

The word feckless means

• weak; ineffective
• worthless; irresponsible

First usage

Our word came into English in the very late 1500s

Background / Comments

My memory was correct; I associated our word with the first Doctor Who show with Colin Baker in the title row. I thought I remembered the phrase “feckless charm”… after doing some research, that memory is correct; he does indeed use that phrase. The phrase was not used in a complimentary way, but I did not look up the definition. Of course, one could provide a useless or unhelpful definition for our word as: “lacking in feck”. The word feck is Scottish and is an alteration of the Middle English word “effect”. Thus, something “lacking in feck” is “lacking in effect” or “ineffective”. There was also a word feckful (efficient; sturdy; powerful), but it is not used much anymore.