complain.
To express feelings of pain, dissatisfaction, or resentment.
Meaning & usage
To express feelings of pain, dissatisfaction, or resentment.
Joe was always complaining about the noise made by his neighbours.
To state the presence of something negative; to indicate that one is suffering from something; to report (e.g.) a symptom.
The patient complained of headache, nausea, and joint pain.
To make a formal accusation or bring a formal charge.
They've complained about me to the police again.
To creak or squeak, as a timber or wheel.
the complaining bed-springs
Where this word comes from
Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *ḱe? Proto-Indo-European *ḱóm Proto-Italic *kom Proto-Italic *kom- Latin con- Latin com- Proto-Indo-European *pel- Proto-Indo-European *-ti Proto-Indo-European *pl(e)h₂-n-g-e-tider. Proto-Italic *plāngō Latin plango Latin plangere Medieval Latin complangereder. Old French conplaindre Old French complaindreder. Middle English complaynen English complain From Middle English complaynen, from Old French complaindre, from Medieval Latin complangere (“to bewail, complain”), from Latin com- (“together”) + plangere (“to strike, beat, as the breast in extreme grief, bewail”); see plain, plaint.
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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.
Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.