Adjective : a plaintive melody.    From Dictionary.com. 

Chiun's strident voice lapsed into puzzled plaintiveness.    From Wordnik.com.  [Encounter Group]

She said it lightly; this was not a moment for plaintiveness.    From Wordnik.com.  [The Trumpeter Swan] Reference

Her glance about the room returned to him with mock plaintiveness.    From Wordnik.com.  [The Fortieth Door] Reference

The merit of this bird's strain is in its freedom from all plaintiveness.    From Wordnik.com.  [Harvard Classics Volume 28 Essays English and American] Reference

In the drafts, we encounter this plaintiveness again but in a different register.    From Wordnik.com.  [Paper Trail] Reference

Then the squaws chanted a wild funeral song in tones of surpassing plaintiveness.    From Wordnik.com.  [Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, August, 1878] Reference

"Choorch?" she said, on the plaintiveness of a high note that broke in her throat.    From Wordnik.com.  [McClure's Magazine, Vol 31, No 2, June 1908] Reference

Another remarkable quality of the song is a union of brilliancy and plaintiveness.    From Wordnik.com.  [The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, No. 14, December 1858] Reference

"Chia, it hurts," he said, with a childlike plaintiveness that she found oddly touching.    From Wordnik.com.  [Recovery]

One of the men crumples up; he "collapses into a yielding mass of plaintiveness and fear.".    From Wordnik.com.  [Christianity and Progress] Reference

It had, I think, an elegiac plaintiveness in it, like a song of old liberty sung in captivity.    From Wordnik.com.  [The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 08, No. 45, July, 1861] Reference

"And you climbed all these flights to give it to me!" she said, with gravely smiling plaintiveness.    From Wordnik.com.  [A Daughter of To-Day] Reference

Her voice had something of plaintiveness, and altogether she was of frailer type than her daughter.    From Wordnik.com.  [New Grub Street] Reference

But a note of plaintiveness crept into his voice: success was boring him, he had no further goals to shoot for.    From Wordnik.com.  [Starman's Quest] Reference

Mrs. Snow's face looked unusually lined and set; in spite of her plaintiveness, her eyes had a harassed glitter.    From Wordnik.com.  [McClure's Magazine, Vol 31, No 2, June 1908] Reference

It will only plead at first to my friends in the still conscious plaintiveness of a young and unhardened beggar.    From Wordnik.com.  [Clarissa Harlowe] Reference

And yet, majestic as the voice sometimes became, there was for ever in it an essential character of plaintiveness.    From Wordnik.com.  [The Scarlet Letter] Reference

"I shall almost need you now that Aunt Ada is married and Edith has gone to Germany" she argued in pretty plaintiveness.    From Wordnik.com.  [The Doctor's Daughter] Reference

We do not, however, remember Leigh Hunt, although his pleasantries would relieve the plaintiveness of some of the poetical contributions.    From Wordnik.com.  [The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction Volume 12, No. 331, September 13, 1828] Reference

A tinge of accusing plaintiveness is in her voice.    From Wordnik.com.  [The Wagnerian Romances] Reference

He looked up with a kind of stunned plaintiveness.    From Wordnik.com.  [Something New] Reference

Her voice sank into the most pitiful plaintiveness.    From Wordnik.com.  [Robert Elsmere] Reference

The plaintiveness of her speech touched even this man.    From Wordnik.com.  [The Law of the Land] Reference

'You are unhappy, said Fakredeen, in a tone of plaintiveness.    From Wordnik.com.  [Tancred Or, The New Crusade] Reference

Mrs. Frankland said this with persuasive plaintiveness of tone.    From Wordnik.com.  [The Faith Doctor A Story of New York] Reference

"I have missed you," she pursued with diabolical plaintiveness.    From Wordnik.com.  [Little Miss Grouch A Narrative Based on the Log of Alexander Forsyth Smith's Maiden Transatlantic Voyage] Reference

The vacant chair across the little table added to the plaintiveness.    From Wordnik.com.  [Stubble] Reference

He had really borne patiently with much plaintiveness, and she knew it.    From Wordnik.com.  [Heartsease, Or, the Brother's Wife] Reference

Her aunt's voice lost something of its plaintiveness in talking with her.    From Wordnik.com.  [The Guardian Angel] Reference

Alternate plaintiveness and weary sharpness of course aggravated both Alda and.    From Wordnik.com.  [The Pillars of the House, V1] Reference

Neither has the blustering of Buzfuz or his sophistical plaintiveness wholly gone by.    From Wordnik.com.  [Pickwickian Manners and Customs] Reference

The only thing that reassured me was the softness and plaintiveness of the voice -- not like.    From Wordnik.com.  [The Little Savage] Reference

The knocking ceases, and a voice, sweetly reassuring in its gentle plaintiveness, asks meekly.    From Wordnik.com.  [Three Men on the Bummel] Reference

The former had a sober, almost solemn expression; the latter was subdued, even to plaintiveness.    From Wordnik.com.  [All's for the Best] Reference

"Then you -- you haven't forgotten poor little me?" she inquired with a sincere plaintiveness in her voice.    From Wordnik.com.  [The Ear in the Wall] Reference

Her eyes, which were surpassing in their dreamy loveliness, were enhanced in beauty by a languid plaintiveness that.    From Wordnik.com.  [The Circassian Slave, or, the Sultan's favorite : a story of Constantinople and the Caucasus] Reference

Indeed, his song is very strong for so small a bird, and unites in a remarkable degree brilliancy and plaintiveness.    From Wordnik.com.  [Bird Stories from Burroughs Sketches of Bird Life Taken from the Works of John Burroughs] Reference