plain
clearly revealed to the mind or the senses or judgment
How often you will meet it
Rank 752 of 71,295 words measured. It occurs 24,961 times across 175,112 chapters — 0.012% of every word in the library.
It belongs to the first 1,000 words, the band worth learning before any other.
What it means
adjective
- clearly revealed to the mind or the senses or judgment also: apparent, evident, manifest, palpable, patent, unmistakable the effects of the drought are apparent to anyone who sees the parched fieldsevident hostility
- not elaborate or elaborated; simple plain foodstuck to the plain facts
- lacking patterns especially in color also: unpatterned
- not mixed with extraneous elements also: sheer, unmingled, unmixed plain watersheer wine
- free from any effort to soften to disguise also: unvarnished the plain and unvarnished truththe unvarnished candor of old people and children
- lacking embellishment or ornamentation also: bare, spare, unembellished, unornamented a plain hair styleunembellished white walls
noun
- extensive tract of level open land also: field, champaign they emerged from the woods onto a vast open plainhe longed for the fields of his youth
plain in real books
Each sentence below was written by a published author and is taken from a different book in our library. Open one to read the passage it came from, with narration.
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He was past middle life and plain, but was of good height and had an air.
Emily Fox-Seton · Frances Hodgson Burnett · Chapter 1
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A lunatic observation makes it wax plain that it will not be in wane to attempt it.
Punchinello, Volume 1, No. 08, May 21, 1870 · Various · Chapter 1
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Her traveling dress lay on the bed--a plain dark silk--her only silk gown except the marriage one.
Christian's Mistake · Dinah Maria Mulock Craik · Chapter 1
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To him, who was never gay but in her presence, her gaiety seemed plain proof of indifference.
Ethan Frome · Edith Wharton · Chapter 1
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He stared at the bend, expecting to see the stiff, plain figure of the detective emerge from the forest.
The Abandoned Room · Wadsworth Camp · Chapter 1