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Plain
Definitions
- 1 Flat, level. archaic, regional
"The crooked shall be made straight, and the rough places plain."
- 2 Full, complete in number or extent. obsolete
- 3 Simple, unaltered.; Ordinary; lacking adornment or ornamentation; unembellished.
"He was dressed simply in plain black clothes."
- 4 Simple, unaltered.; Of just one colour; lacking a pattern.
"a plain pink polycotton skirt"
- 5 Simple, unaltered.; Simple in habits or qualities; unsophisticated, not exceptional, ordinary.
"They're just plain people like you or me."
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- 6 Simple, unaltered.; 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?"
- 7 Simple, unaltered.; Containing no extended or nonprinting characters (especially in plain text).
- 8 Obvious.; 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."
- 9 Obvious.; Downright; total, unmistakable (as intensifier).
"His answer was just plain nonsense."
- 10 Open.; Honest and without deception; candid, open; blunt.
"Let me be plain with you: I don't like her."
- 11 Open.; Clear; unencumbered; equal; fair.
"Our troops beat an army in plain fight."
- 12 Not unusually beautiful; unattractive.
"Throughout high school she worried that she had a rather plain face."
- 13 Not a trump.
- 1 lacking embellishment or ornamentation wordnet
- 2 lacking in physical beauty or proportion wordnet
- 3 free from any effort to soften to disguise wordnet
- 4 clearly revealed to the mind or the senses or judgment wordnet
- 5 lacking patterns especially in color wordnet
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- 6 not elaborate or elaborated; simple wordnet
- 7 not mixed with extraneous elements wordnet
- 1 Simply. colloquial, not-comparable
"It was just plain stupid."
- 2 Plainly; distinctly. archaic, not-comparable
"Tell me plain: do you love me or no?"
- 1 unmistakably (‘plain’ is often used informally for ‘plainly’) wordnet
- 1 A surname.
- 1 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."
- 2 A lamentation. poetic, rare
"The warrior-threat, the infant's plain, The mother's screams, were heard in vain;"
- 3 a basic knitting stitch made by putting the needle through the front of the stitch from the lefthand side wordnet
- 4 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."
- 5 extensive tract of level open land wordnet
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- 6 Synonym of field in reference to a battlefield. archaic
"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"
- 7 Alternative spelling of plane: a flat geometric field. alt-of, alternative, obsolete
- 1 To level; to raze; to make plain or even on the surface. obsolete, transitive
"Frownst thou thereat aspiring Lancaster, The sworde shall plane the furrowes of thy browes,"
- 2 To complain. obsolete, reflexive
"Persones and parisch prestes · pleyned hem to þe bischop / Þat here parisshes were pore · sith þe pestilence tyme […]."
- 3 express complaints, discontent, displeasure, or unhappiness wordnet
- 4 To make plain or manifest; to explain. obsolete, transitive
"What’s dumb in show, I’ll plain with speech."
- 5 To lament, bewail. ambitransitive, archaic, poetic
"to plain a loss"
Etymology
From 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.
From 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.
From Old French plain, from Latin plānum (“level ground, a plain”), neuter substantive from plānus (“level, even, flat”). Doublet of llano, piano, and plane.
From Old French plain, from Latin plānum (“level ground, a plain”), neuter substantive from plānus (“level, even, flat”). Doublet of llano, piano, and plane.
From Anglo-Norman plainer, pleiner, variant of Anglo-Norman and Old French pleindre, plaindre, from Latin plangere.
From Anglo-Norman plainer, pleiner, variant of Anglo-Norman and Old French pleindre, plaindre, from Latin plangere.
From Middle English pleyn, borrowed from Old French plein, from Latin plēnus (“full, filled, complete”). Ultimately from Proto-Italic *plēnos, from Proto-Indo-European *pl̥h₁nós (“full”). Doublet of plene, plenary, and full.
See also for "plain"
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Unscramble this word: plain