complain
Formscomplains, complaining, complained
- 1To voice feelings of pain, dissatisfaction, or resentment about something.
Passengers complain when flights are delayed without any explanation.
He kept complaining about his aching back all afternoon.
Similargrumble, protest, object, moan, whine
Note
Behind the grumbling lies grief. The Latin root plangere meant to strike or beat the breast in mourning, and the same root gives English plaint. Older English kept that weight: Milton's Samson Agonistes (1671) cries "of thee I most complain!" to lament lost sight, not to gripe about it. In everyday modern use the usual partner is about, as in complaining about the neighbors' noise.
- 2To make a formal accusation or bring a formal charge against someone.
The tenants complained to the housing authority about the unsafe conditions.
Anyone harmed by the fraud may complain to the financial regulator.
Similarprotest
Note
Here the complaint goes somewhere: to the police, to the king, to a bureau. The construction has two slots. You complain to the authority, and about or of the person accused, as in Shakespeare's The Merry Wives of Windsor: "you'll complain of me to the king?" George Carlin's joke in Brain Droppings (1997) turns on the to. If the Better Business Bureau cheats you, who is left to complain to?
- 3To creak or squeak, as a strained timber or a turning wheel does.
The ship's timbers complained under the weight of the storm.
Old hinges complain when no one has oiled them for years.
Similarcreak, groan, squeak, protest
Note
Timber and machinery borrow the human sense of voicing distress, so a strained beam or a dry wheel sounds as if it were protesting under load. The participle often does the work, placed before a noun like an adjective: the complaining bed-springs. Choosing complain over creak gives the object a personality, as though it had a grievance of its own.
Practice
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Origin
From Middle English complaynen, from Old French complaindre, from Medieval Latin complangere ('to bewail, complain'), itself from Latin com- ('together') and plangere ('to strike or beat', as one beats the breast in extreme grief).