complainant

• complainaunt (obsolete, rare)

From Old French complaignant, present participle of complaindre.

• IPA^(key): /kəmˈpleɪnənt/

• Audio (Southern England):

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complainant (plural complainants)

1. One who makes complaint, one who complains.
   • 1708-1714 Jeremy Collier, Ecclesiastical History of Great Britain

     Eager complainants […] in the dispute.

   • 1962 August, “Let's have plain speaking”, in Modern Railways, page 73:

     The Southern Region takes, in the main, a candid line with its public. [...] An ill-informed attempt to blackguard the railway publicly is likely to see the complainant put politely—but very firmly—in his place.

   • 2011, Ken Jennings, “Benchmarks”, in Maphead: Charting the Wide, Weird World of Geography Wonks‎^[1], Scribner, →ISBN, →LCCN, →OCLC, page 72:

     It's hard for Americans to understand the patriotism that can get bound up in place-names. We're a young country. We're also accustomed, in our cockeyed cowboy fashion, to everything else revolving around us, so we can afford to let slide the fact that, say, the Gulf of Mexico isn't called the Gulf of America. (Although, according to John Hébert, that is the pet issue of one frequent complainant to the Board on Geographic Names.)

2. (law) The party that brings a civil lawsuit against another; the plaintiff.
3. (law) An alleged victim in a criminal investigation or trial.

• (law, litigation): (in civil proceedings) claimant
• (law): (in criminal proceedings) plaintiff

• (law, litigation): (in civil or criminal proceedings) defendant
• (law, litigation): (in civil proceedings) respondent