Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun The party that institutes a suit in a court.
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun In law, the person who begins a suit before a tribunal for the recovery of a claim: opposed to defendant.
- Complaining.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- adjective obsolete See
plaintive . - noun (Law) One who commences a personal action or suit to obtain a remedy for an injury to his rights; -- opposed to
defendant .
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun law A
party bringing asuit incivil law against adefendant ; accusers.
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun a person who brings an action in a court of law
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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That defendant gave to A. twelvepence to pay plaintiff in fuU/atisfaaiom, which plaintiff* received.
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Kristin Perry, 45, is the title plaintiff in the case registered on legal dockets as Perry v. Schwarzenegger.
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Kristin Perry, 45, is the title plaintiff in the case registered on legal dockets as Perry v. Schwarzenegger.
The Seattle Times 2010
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When a plaintiff is able to prove defamation per se, damages are presumed, but the presumption is rebuttable.
Heroes or Villains? 2010
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Nonetheless, the underlying rationale of Hustler, and especially of the passage quoted above, applies to all speech on matters of public concern — whether the plaintiff is a public figure or a private figure, and whether the speech is about a public figure, a private figure, or no particular person atall.
The Volokh Conspiracy » My Short Essay on Snyder v. Phelps, Part I: The Wisdom of Hustler v. Falwell 2010
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In 1656, in the “Court of trials of the Colony of Providence Plantations,” in an “action … of detenew for detaining certaine … horsis and mares,” the court “fownd in the Plaintifs declaration a Verball oversight”; the word plaintiff “should have beine writ defendant.”
A History of American Law Lawrence M. Friedman 1985
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In 1656, in the “Court of trials of the Colony of Providence Plantations,” in an “action … of detenew for detaining certaine … horsis and mares,” the court “fownd in the Plaintifs declaration a Verball oversight”; the word plaintiff “should have beine writ defendant.”
A History of American Law Lawrence M. Friedman 1985
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The most a judge should award the plaintiff is the amount it would cost a person who lost the same CD from a rental store.
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This case had already been tried at the last Court Session, and the protocols of the former suit are being read; therefore one learns that the plaintiff is a poor farmer's daughter and the defendant is a married man.
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Therefore, the "plaintiff" is society/the state and not the victim.
Reader poll: Send Roman Polanski to prison? (Jack Bog's Blog) 2009
qroqqa commented on the word plaintiff
English law term, replaced by 'claimant' in 1999 (in England and Wales).
August 18, 2008
super-logos commented on the word plaintiff
still used in American courts. "Claimant" is often seen in claims involving administrative law in the US.
August 18, 2008
qroqqa commented on the word plaintiff
Quite right: I had first thought 'English law' would be specific enough, but changed my mind and came back to add 'England and Wales' to my first posting. 'English law', while it is unlikely to mean "English-language law", is still rather vague about jurisdictions.
August 18, 2008
bilby commented on the word plaintiff
If on the other hand you're having an unusually large tiff, you will of course need a bigger word as well.
October 30, 2008