plaintive
The writing is sometimes exquisite in its plaintiveness.
The song deepens from plaintiveness to irrevocable sorrow.
Her performance is wonderfully sympathetic, without any recourse to plaintiveness or souped-up emotion.

SMART Vocabulary: related words and phrases

Describing qualities of sound
audibly
boomy
chocolatey
chuff
clomp
crackling
ear-splitting
mellifluously
melodically
melodiously
metallically
murmurous
silvery
squeaky
staccato
thready
tinnily
tunefully
tunefulness
tunelessly

Examples of plaintiveness

plaintiveness
The merit of this bird's strain is in its freedom from all plaintiveness.
From National Geographic
Indeed, his song is very strong for so small a bird, and unites in a remarkable degree brilliancy and plaintiveness.
From Project Gutenberg
And yet, majestic as the voice sometimes became, there was forever in it an essential character of plaintiveness.
From Project Gutenberg
Indeed, his song is very strong for so small a bird and unites in a remarkable degree brilliancy and plaintiveness.
From Project Gutenberg
Her voice had a strange piercing plaintiveness and wildness.
From Project Gutenberg
This was said without any effort at plaintiveness, but rather as if she thought it necessary to excuse herself for being where she was.
From Project Gutenberg
That is his song now,--"twe-twea-twe-e-e-a," with a peculiar summer languor and plaintiveness, and issuing from the lower branches and growths.
From Project Gutenberg
The captain was edging toward a belaying-pin; but he noticed that the speaker's voice had lost its plaintiveness, and three tubes were looking at him.
From Project Gutenberg
Much of it is in minor keys, and a strain of plaintiveness mingles with all its majesty and power.
From Project Gutenberg
The song is rude and barbarous but not without a certain plaintiveness; the song, and scene belong together.
From Project Gutenberg
Its touching plaintiveness often brought the tears to my eyes.
From Project Gutenberg
There was a plaintiveness in her voice and in her manner.
From Project Gutenberg
Her aunt's voice lost something of its plaintiveness in talking with her.
From Project Gutenberg
He looked up with a kind of stunned plaintiveness.
From Project Gutenberg
The plaintiveness of her speech touched even this man.
From Project Gutenberg
These examples are from corpora and from sources on the web. Any opinions in the examples do not represent the opinion of the Cambridge Dictionary editors or of Cambridge University Press or its licensors.