plighted

1. 1
   verb

   Simple past and past participle of plight.

   In the old chapel, the couple plighted their troth before a handful of witnesses.

   Having plighted himself to the cause, he spent the rest of his life defending it.

   Note

   It serves as the past tense (they plighted their troth) and after have or be (her word was plighted), and its natural home is that old marriage formula of pledged faithfulness. In older texts it can also mean put at risk, an archaic use. The weaving and folding meaning of the verb is obsolete, and it is the one behind the pleated adjective.

2. 2
   adjectiveobsolete

   Folded, pleated, or plaited, as cloth made up into folds.

   Clothes ſhall not bee tacked oꝛ plighted tyll the Auneger hath ſearched them.

   1588, A Collection in English, of the Statutes now in force

   Note

   This adjective comes from an older plight meaning a plait or fold, so plighted cloth was simply cloth made up in folds. Richard Newcourt, in 1708, describes Blackfriars wearing something black and plighted over their white clothes when they went abroad. The word is obsolete and pleated now does its work; near cloth or clothing, read plighted as folded, not as the past of the verb plight.

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