"no-frills" meaning in English

See no-frills in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Adjective

Audio: En-au-no-frills.ogg Forms: no frills [alternative]
Head templates: {{en-adj|-|head=no-frills}} no-frills (not comparable)
  1. (idiomatic) Basic or simple; providing only what is necessary, without anything extra or fancy. Tags: idiomatic, not-comparable Translations (basic or simple): perus- (Finnish), halpis- (Finnish), ohne Schnickschnack [informal] (German), fapados (Hungarian), senza fronzoli (Italian), без изли́шеств (bez izlíšestv) (Russian), без наворо́тов (bez navorótov) [colloquial] (Russian), без прибамба́сов (bez pribambásov) [colloquial] (Russian), без свисте́лок и перде́лок (bez svistélok i perdélok) [colloquial] (Russian), utan krusiduller (Swedish)

Alternative forms

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          "ref": "2014 January 30, Seth Kugel, “Wintertime Bargains in Budapest”, in The New York Times:",
          "text": "Another friend […] gathered a group to go to […] a no-frills comfort food restaurant, with a vast menu of classics sold at extraordinarily low prices: the only item in the 11-page menu over 1,000 forints was a bottle of sparkling wine, a reasonable 1,190 forints for 0.7 liters.",
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          "text": "Although it is a pain whenever I want to double a consonant before a suffix, per New Yorker style, and the spell-check prefers the no-frills version—“mislabeled,” say, instead of “mislabelled”—and I have to go back and poke in the extra letter and then put up with a disapproving red line under the word, I would never disable spell-check.",
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          "ref": "2022 November 2, Paul Bigland, “New trains, old trains, and splendid scenery”, in RAIL, number 969, page 58:",
          "text": "Other stops retain no-frills brick-built shelters, although local community rail groups do their best to improve the ambience with planting, posters and artwork.",
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        "Basic or simple; providing only what is necessary, without anything extra or fancy."
      ],
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        "(idiomatic) Basic or simple; providing only what is necessary, without anything extra or fancy."
      ],
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        {
          "code": "fi",
          "lang": "Finnish",
          "sense": "basic or simple",
          "word": "perus-"
        },
        {
          "code": "fi",
          "lang": "Finnish",
          "sense": "basic or simple",
          "word": "halpis-"
        },
        {
          "code": "de",
          "lang": "German",
          "sense": "basic or simple",
          "tags": [
            "informal"
          ],
          "word": "ohne Schnickschnack"
        },
        {
          "code": "hu",
          "lang": "Hungarian",
          "sense": "basic or simple",
          "word": "fapados"
        },
        {
          "code": "it",
          "lang": "Italian",
          "sense": "basic or simple",
          "word": "senza fronzoli"
        },
        {
          "code": "ru",
          "lang": "Russian",
          "roman": "bez izlíšestv",
          "sense": "basic or simple",
          "word": "без изли́шеств"
        },
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          "code": "ru",
          "lang": "Russian",
          "roman": "bez navorótov",
          "sense": "basic or simple",
          "tags": [
            "colloquial"
          ],
          "word": "без наворо́тов"
        },
        {
          "code": "ru",
          "lang": "Russian",
          "roman": "bez pribambásov",
          "sense": "basic or simple",
          "tags": [
            "colloquial"
          ],
          "word": "без прибамба́сов"
        },
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          "lang": "Russian",
          "roman": "bez svistélok i perdélok",
          "sense": "basic or simple",
          "tags": [
            "colloquial"
          ],
          "word": "без свисте́лок и перде́лок"
        },
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          "code": "sv",
          "lang": "Swedish",
          "sense": "basic or simple",
          "word": "utan krusiduller"
        }
      ]
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        "(idiomatic) Basic or simple; providing only what is necessary, without anything extra or fancy."
      ],
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  "translations": [
    {
      "code": "fi",
      "lang": "Finnish",
      "sense": "basic or simple",
      "word": "perus-"
    },
    {
      "code": "fi",
      "lang": "Finnish",
      "sense": "basic or simple",
      "word": "halpis-"
    },
    {
      "code": "de",
      "lang": "German",
      "sense": "basic or simple",
      "tags": [
        "informal"
      ],
      "word": "ohne Schnickschnack"
    },
    {
      "code": "hu",
      "lang": "Hungarian",
      "sense": "basic or simple",
      "word": "fapados"
    },
    {
      "code": "it",
      "lang": "Italian",
      "sense": "basic or simple",
      "word": "senza fronzoli"
    },
    {
      "code": "ru",
      "lang": "Russian",
      "roman": "bez izlíšestv",
      "sense": "basic or simple",
      "word": "без изли́шеств"
    },
    {
      "code": "ru",
      "lang": "Russian",
      "roman": "bez navorótov",
      "sense": "basic or simple",
      "tags": [
        "colloquial"
      ],
      "word": "без наворо́тов"
    },
    {
      "code": "ru",
      "lang": "Russian",
      "roman": "bez pribambásov",
      "sense": "basic or simple",
      "tags": [
        "colloquial"
      ],
      "word": "без прибамба́сов"
    },
    {
      "code": "ru",
      "lang": "Russian",
      "roman": "bez svistélok i perdélok",
      "sense": "basic or simple",
      "tags": [
        "colloquial"
      ],
      "word": "без свисте́лок и перде́лок"
    },
    {
      "code": "sv",
      "lang": "Swedish",
      "sense": "basic or simple",
      "word": "utan krusiduller"
    }
  ],
  "word": "no-frills"
}

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This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2025-06-13 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2025-06-01 using wiktextract (9c82c1c and f1c2b61). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.

If you use this data in academic research, please cite Tatu Ylonen: Wiktextract: Wiktionary as Machine-Readable Structured Data, Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC), pp. 1317-1325, Marseille, 20-25 June 2022. Linking to the relevant page(s) under https://kaikki.org would also be greatly appreciated.