plangent

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The Word of the Day for August 3 is:

plangent   \PLAN-junt\   adjective 
     1 : having a loud reverberating sound 
   *2 : having an expressive and especially plaintive quality

Example sentence:
     The plangent strains of a fiddle emanated from somewhere deep within the 
faceless gray stone building.

Did you know?
     "Plangent" adds power to our poetry and prose: the pounding of waves, the 
beat of wings, the tolling of a bell, the throbbing of the human heart, a 
lover's knocking at the door -- all have been described as plangent. The word 
"plangent" traces back to the Latin verb "plangere," which has two meanings. 
The first of those meanings, "to strike or beat," was sometimes used by Latin 
speakers in reference to striking one's breast in grief. This, in turn, led to 
the verb's second meaning: "to lament." The sense division carried over to the 
Latin adjective "plangens" and then into English, giving us the two distinct 
meanings of "plangent": "pounding" and "expressive of melancholy."

*Indicates the sense illustrated in the example sentence.