/pleɪn/, [pl̥eɪn], /plɛjn/
OriginFrom Middle English pleyn, borrowed from Anglo-Norman pleyn, playn, Middle French plain, plein, and Old French plain, from Latin plānus (“flat, even, level, plain”). Doublet of llano, piano, and plane.
- archaic, regionalFlat, level.
“The crooked shall be made straight, and the rough places plain.”
- Ordinary; lacking adornment or ornamentation; unembellished.
“He was dressed simply in plain black clothes.”
“a plain tune”
“The ability of a segment of a glass sphere to magnify whatever is placed before it was known around the year 1000, when the spherical segment was called a reading stone, essentially what today we migh”
- Of just one colour; lacking a pattern.
“a plain pink polycotton skirt”
- Simple in habits or qualities; unsophisticated, not exceptional, ordinary.
“They're just plain people like you or me.”
“plain yet pious Christians”
“the plain people”
- Having only few ingredients, or no additional ingredients or seasonings; not elaborate, without toppings or extras.
“Would you like a poppy bagel or a plain bagel?”
- Containing no extended or nonprinting characters (especially in plain text).
- Evident to one's senses or reason; manifest, clear, unmistakable.
“In fact, by excommunication or persuasion, by impetuosity of driving or adroitness in leading, this Abbot, it is now becoming plain everywhere, is a man that generally remains master at last.”
- Downright; total, unmistakable (as intensifier).
“His answer was just plain nonsense.”
- Honest and without deception; candid, open; blunt.
“Let me be plain with you: I don't like her.”
“[VV]e are able with playne demonſtration to proue, and vvith reaſon to perſvvade that in tymes paſt our fayth vvas alike, that then vve preached thinges correſpondent vnto the forme of faith already p”
“an honest mind, and plain, he must speak truth”
- Clear; unencumbered; equal; fair.
“Our troops beat an army in plain fight.”
- Not unusually beautiful; unattractive.
“Throughout high school she worried that she had a rather plain face.”
“Yet her beauty clung to her like an identity she was trying to deny and her plainness kept slipping like a bad disguise.”
- Not a trump.
- obsoleteFull, complete in number or extent.
- colloquial, not-comparableSimply.
“It was just plain stupid.”
“I plain forgot.”
“One trouble, he explained, is that dope pushers flock to neighborhoods where two gangs are at war, knowing they will find buyers among members of the gangs who are so keyed up that they welcome any ki”
- archaic, not-comparablePlainly; distinctly.
“Tell me plain: do you love me or no?”
- An expanse of land with relatively low relief and few trees, especially a grassy expanse.
“Him the Ammonite / Worshipped in Rabba and her watery plain.”
“1961, J. A. Philip. Mimesis in the Sophistês of Plato. In: Proceedings and Transactions of the American Philological Association 92. p. 467.
For Plato the life of the philosopher is a life of struggle”
- A broad, flat expanse in general, as of water.
“Fair ship, that from the Italian shore,
Sailest the placid ocean-plains
With my lost Arthur’s loved remains,
Spread thy full wings, and waft him o’er.”
- archaicSynonym of field in reference to a battlefield.
“You have stormed no town and found the money there ; neither did you find it in the plains of Plassey after the defeat of the Nawab”
“Lead forth my soldiers to the plain.”
- poetic, rareA lamentation.
“The warrior-threat, the infant's plain,
The mother's screams, were heard in vain;”
- obsolete, transitiveTo level; to raze; to make plain or even on the surface.
“Frownst thou thereat aspiring Lancaster,
The sworde shall plane the furrowes of thy browes,”
“We would rake Europe rather, plain the East;”
- obsolete, transitiveTo make plain or manifest; to explain.
“What’s dumb in show, I’ll plain with speech.”
- obsolete, reflexiveTo complain.
“Persones and parisch prestes · pleyned hem to þe bischop / Þat here parisshes were pore · sith þe pestilence tyme […].”
- ambitransitive, archaic, poeticTo lament, bewail.
“to plain a loss”
“Shepheards, that wont[…]
Oft times to plaine your loves concealed smart”
“Thy mother could thee for thy cradle set
Her husband's rusty iron corselet;
Whose jargling sound might rock her babe to rest,
That never plain'd of his uneasy nest.”
Formsplainer(comparative) · plainest(superlative) · plaine(alternative, obsolete) · plains(plural) · plains(present, singular, third-person) · plaining(participle, present) · plained(participle, past) · plained(past) · plein(alternative) · Plains(plural)