A plaintiff is the party who begins the action. The New York booklet states the definition in those plain terms: the person who starts a suit or brings an action against another. The word belongs to litigation vocabulary rather than to notarial certificates themselves, but it appears frequently enough in legal documents to merit a place in the glossary.
The natural counterpart is the defendant, though the booklet term list here focuses on plaintiff alone. For notaries, understanding that vocabulary matters less for certification and more for reading the kind of papers that come across the desk—affidavits, judgments, testimony, and papers used in civil proceedings.
Practical note: Plaintiff tells you who is pressing the claim, not who is right. It is a procedural role word, not a judgment on the merits.
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