plighting

Pluralplightings

1. 1
   verb

   Present participle and gerund of plight.

   The couple stood before the altar, plighting their troth in front of both families.

   By plighting his support to the new leader so early, the senator tied his fortunes to hers.

   Note

   The form belongs to the verb of promising, whose home is the wedding phrase plighting one's troth; older uses for putting something at risk or for braiding have fallen away. It has nothing to do with the far commoner noun plight, a dire situation, which has no -ing form of its own, so plighting never means being in trouble.

2. 2
   nouncountable

   The act of pledging or promising something, such as one's faithfulness in marriage.

   The ceremony closed with a plighting of troth beneath the old oak tree.

   The novel turns on a secret plighting between two young people whose families are at war.

   Similarpledge, promise, vow, pledging

   Note

   The noun often travels with of troth, the old phrase for a vow of faithfulness. Leigh Hunt, in The Seer, sets secret plightings of troth, made in the eye of heaven, against proper marriages: a plighting was the promise, not the wedding itself. It counts like any noun, so one couple makes a plighting and a story can hold several plightings.

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