plain

From Latin plēnus. Compare Italian pieno, Romansch plain, Romanian plin, French plein.


plain

The crooked shall be made straight, and the rough places plain.

1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Isaiah 40:4:

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 might term a frameless magnifying glass or plain glass paperweight.

2013 September–October, Henry Petroski, “The Evolution of Eyeglasses”, in American Scientist:

Ordinary; lacking adornment or ornamentation; unembellished.

a plain pink polycotton skirt

Simple, unaltered.
Of just one colour; lacking a pattern.

They're just plain people like you or me.

plain yet pious Christians

the plain people

1861, Abraham Lincoln, Message to Congress in Special Session, July 4th:

Simple in habits or qualities; unsophisticated, not exceptional, ordinary.

Would you like a poppy bagel or a plain bagel?

(of food) Having only few ingredients, or no additional ingredients or seasonings; not elaborate, without toppings or extras.

(computing) Containing no extended or nonprinting characters (especially in plain text).

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.

1843 April, Thomas Carlyle, “ch. XV, Practical — Devotional”, in Past and Present, American edition, Boston, Mass.: Charles C[offin] Little and James Brown, published 1843, →OCLC, book II (The Ancient Monk):

Evident to one's senses or reason; manifest, clear, unmistakable.

His answer was just plain nonsense.

Downright; total, unmistakable (as intensifier).

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 published of vs, ſo that none in this behalfe can repyne or gaynesay vs.

1577, Socrates Scholasticus [i.e., Socrates of Constantinople], “Constantinus the Emperour Summoneth the Nicene Councell, it was Held at Nicæa a Citie of Bythnia for the Debatinge of the Controuersie about the Feast of Easter, and the Rootinge out of the Heresie of Arius”, in Eusebius Pamphilus, Socrates Scholasticus, Evagrius Scholasticus, Dorotheus, translated by Meredith Hanmer, The Avncient Ecclesiasticall Histories of the First Six Hundred Yeares after Christ, Wrytten in the Greeke Tongue by Three Learned Historiographers, Eusebius, Socrates, and Euagrius. …, book I (The First Booke of the Ecclesiasticall Historye of Socrates Scholasticvs), imprinted at London: By Thomas Vautroullier dwelling in the Blackefriers by Ludgate, →OCLC, page 225:

an honest mind, and plain, he must speak truth

c. 1603–1606, William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of King Lear”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act II, scene v]:

The Quaker was no sooner assured by this fellow of the birth and low fortune of Jones, than all compassion for him vanished; and the honest plain man went home fired with no less indignation than a duke would have felt at receiving an affront from such a person.

1749, Henry Fielding, The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling, volume (please specify |volume=I to VI), London: A[ndrew] Millar, […], →OCLC:

Honest and without deception; candid, open; blunt.

Our troops beat an army in plain fight.

1711, Henry Felton, Dissertation on Reading the Classics:

Yet her beauty clung to her like an identity she was trying to deny and her plainness kept slipping like a bad disguise.

Throughout high school she worried that she had a rather plain face.

en-adj

plain (comparative plainer, superlative plainest)

plainer (comparative)
plainest (superlative)
plaine (alternative)

بَسِيط

ordinary; lacking adornment or ornamentation

net

computing: containing no non-printing characters

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.


plain

It was just plain stupid.

I plain forgot.

Tell me plain: do you love me or no?


plain

Him the Ammonite / Worshipped in Rabba and her watery plain.

1667, John Milton, “Book I”, in Paradise Lost. […], London: […] [Samuel Simmons], and are to be sold by Peter Parker […]; [a]nd by Robert Boulter […]; [a]nd Matthias Walker, […], →OCLC; republished as Paradise Lost in Ten Books: […], London: Basil Montagu Pickering […], 1873, →OCLC:

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 towards the goal of knowledge, towards “searching the heavens and measuring the plains, in all places seeking the nature of everything as a whole”

An expanse of land with relatively low relief and few trees, especially a grassy expanse.

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.

1850, [Alfred, Lord Tennyson], In Memoriam, London: Edward Moxon, […], →OCLC, Canto IX:

A broad, flat expanse in general, as of water.

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

1899, Alexander John Arbuthnot, Lord Clive: The Foundation of British Rule in India:

Lead forth my soldiers to the plain.

c. 1593 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedy of Richard the Third: […]”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act V, scene iii]:

(archaic) Synonym of field in reference to a battlefield.

(obsolete) Alternative spelling of plane: a flat geometric field.

the rain in Spain falls mainly in the plain

rrafsh

an expanse of land with relatively low relief

From Old French plain, from Latin plānum (“level ground, a plain”), neuter substantive from plānus (“level, even, flat”). Doublet of llano, piano, and plane.


plain

Frownst thou thereat aspiring Lancaster,
The sworde shall plane the furrowes of thy browes,

1594, Christopher Marlow[e], The Troublesome Raigne and Lamentable Death of Edward the Second, King of England: […], London: […] [Eliot’s Court Press] for Henry Bell, […], published 1622, →OCLC, (please specify the page):

We would rake Europe rather, plain the East;

1612, George Wither, Prince Henrie’s Obsequies, Elegy 24, in Egerton Brydges (editor), Restituta, Volume I, London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme & Brown, 1814, p. 399, Though kept by Rome’s and Mahomet’s chiefe powers; They should not long detain him there in thrall

Dispeople the whole Earth before the doome:

(obsolete, transitive) To level; to raze; to make plain or even on the surface.

What’s dumb in show, I’ll plain with speech.

c. 1607–1608 (date written), William Shakespeare, [George Wilkins?], The Late, and Much Admired Play, Called Pericles, Prince of Tyre. […], London: […] [William White and Thomas Creede] for Henry Gosson, […], published 1609, →OCLC, [Act III, prologue]:

(obsolete, transitive) To make plain or manifest; to explain.

en-verb

plain (third-person singular simple present plains, present participle plaining, simple past and past participle plained)

plains (present singular third-person)
plaining (participle present)
plained (participle past)
plained (past)


plain

The warrior-threat, the infant's plain,
The mother's screams, were heard in vain;

1815, Sir Walter Scott, The Lady of the Isles, Canto IV, part IX:

From Anglo-Norman plainer, pleiner, variant of Anglo-Norman and Old French pleindre, plaindre, from Latin plangere.


plain

Persones and parisch prestes · pleyned hem to þe bischop / Þat here parisshes were pore · sith þe pestilence tyme […].

c. 1370–1390, [William Langland], “[Prologue]”, in The Vision of Pierce Plowman [...], London: […] Roberte Crowley, […], published 1550, →OCLC:

to plain a loss

Shepheards, that wont[…]
Oft times to plaine your loves concealed smart

1595, Ed. Spencer [i.e., Edmund Spenser], “Astrophel. A Pastoral Elegie vpon the Death of the Most Noble and Valorous Knight, Sir Philip Sidney.”, in Colin Clouts Come Home Againe, London: […] T[homas] C[reede] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC:

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.

Then, again, she almost thought that the soft and wailing wind which swept mournfully through the sepulchral boughs of the large old yews, had a voice not of this world—was it the inarticulate plaining of her brother's gentle spirit, debarred from intercourse, but still keeping over her the deep and eternal watch of love?

1834, L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], chapter II, in Francesca Carrara. […], volume III, London: Richard Bentley, […], (successor to Henry Colburn), →OCLC, page 9:

Then came I crying, and to-day, / With heavier cause to plain, / Depart I into death away, / Not to be born again.

1936, Alfred Edward Housman, More Poems, "XXV", lines 5–9

(ambitransitive, now rare, poetic) To lament, bewail.

plains (present singular third-person)
plaining (participle present)
plained (participle past)
plained (past)
plein (alternative)


plain

(obsolete) Full, complete in number or extent.

plainer (comparative)
plainest (superlative)

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.


plain

fr-adj

plain (feminine plaine, masculine plural plains, feminine plural plaines)

plaine (feminine)
plains (masculine plural)
plaines (feminine plural)

Inherited from Old French plain, from Latin plānus. Doublet of plan and piano.


plain

head

plain m (feminine singular plaine, masculine plural plains, feminine plural plaines)

plaine (feminine singular)
plains (masculine plural)
plaines (feminine plural)

From Old French plain, from Latin plēnus.


plain

De tant come ele l'ot veü,
Que plains estoit de felenie.

c. 1170, Chrétien de Troyes, Érec et Énide:

French: plein


plain

fro-noun

plain oblique singular, m (oblique plural plainz, nominative singular plainz, nominative plural plain)

plain oblique singular or (canonical masculine)
plainz (oblique plural)
plainz (nominative singular)
plain (nominative plural)

→ Dutch: plein

→ Middle English:

English: plain

Scots: plain

From Latin plānum (“level ground, a plain”), neuter substantive from plānus (“level, even, flat”).


plain

head

plain m (oblique and nominative feminine singular plaine)

plaine (feminine nominative oblique singular)

From Latin plānus (“level, even, flat”).


plain

(Rumantsch Grischun, Puter, Vallader) full

rm-adj

plain m (feminine singular plaina, masculine plural plains, feminine plural plainas)

plaina (feminine singular)
plains (masculine plural)
plainas (feminine plural)
plein (alternative)
plagn (alternative)