Plight vs Circumstantial - What's the difference?
plight | circumstantial |
A dire or unfortunate situation.
*{{quote-news, year=2011, date=December 10, author=Arindam Rej, work=BBC Sport
, title= *2005 , Lesley Brown, translating Plato, Sophist , :
*:Though we say we are quite clear about it and understand when someone uses the expression, unlike that other expression, maybe we're in the same plight with regard to them both.
*, II.8:
*:although hee live in as good plight and health as may be, yet he chafeth, he scoldeth, he brawleth, he fighteth, he sweareth, and biteth, as the most boistrous and tempestuous master of France .
(obsolete) Good health.
*1590 , (Edmund Spenser), The Faerie Queene , III.7:
*:All wayes shee sought him to restore to plight , / With herbs, with charms, with counsel, and with teares.
Responsibility for ensuing consequences; risk; danger; peril.
An instance of danger or peril; a dangerous moment or situation.
Blame; culpability; fault; wrong-doing; sin; crime.
One's office; duty; charge.
(archaic) That which is exposed to risk; that which is plighted or pledged; security; a gage; a pledge.
* Shakespeare
To expose to risk; to pledge.
Specifically, to pledge (one's troth etc.) as part of a marriage ceremony.
(reflexive) To promise (oneself) to someone, or to do something.
* 1992 , Hilary Mantel, A Place of Greater Safety , Harper Perennial 2007, p. 226:
(obsolete) To weave; to braid; to fold; to plait.
* Milton
(obsolete) A network; a plait; a fold; rarely a garment.
* Spenser
Pertaining to or dependent on circumstances, especially as opposed to essentials; incidental, not essential.
* Sharp
Abounding with circumstances; detailing or exhibiting all the circumstances; minute; particular.
* 1806 , )
* 2007 , John Burrow, A History of Histories , Penguin 2009, p. 326:
Full of circumstance or pomp; ceremonial.
(chiefly, in the plural) Something incidental to the main subject, but of less importance.
As nouns the difference between plight and circumstantial
is that plight is a dire or unfortunate situation while circumstantial is something incidental to the main subject, but of less importance.As a verb plight
is to expose to risk; to pledge.As an adjective circumstantial is
pertaining to or dependent on circumstances, especially as opposed to essentials; incidental, not essential.plight
English
Etymology 1
(etyl) ).Noun
(en noun)Norwich 4-2 Newcastle, passage=A second Norwich goal in four minutes arrived after some dire Newcastle defending. Gosling gave the ball away with a sloppy back-pass, allowing Crofts to curl in a cross that the unmarked Morison powered in with a firm, 12-yard header. ¶ Gosling's plight worsened when he was soon shown a red card for a foul on Martin.}}
Etymology 2
From (etyl) . More at pledge.Noun
(en noun)- that lord whose hand must take my plight
Derived terms
* (l) * (l)Verb
(en verb)- I ask what I have done to deserve it, one daughter hobnobbing with radicals and the other planning to plight herself to a criminal.
Derived terms
* (l)Etymology 3
Through (etyl), from (etyl) and Danish flette are probably unrelated.Verb
(en verb)- A plighted garment of divers colors.
Noun
(en noun)- Many a folded plight .
circumstantial
English
Adjective
(en adjective)- We must therefore distinguish between the essentials in religious worship and what is merely circumstantial .
- For although my information appears too direct and circumstantial to be fictitious, yet the magnitude of the enterprise, the desperation of the plan, and the stupendous consequences with which it seems pregnant, stagger my belief
- Second-hand but clearly from the best possible source - the King himself - [the story] is highly circumstantial , taking twenty-two pages of text.
Noun
(en noun)- the circumstantials of religion