Plain

12 definitions found

From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48 [gcide]:

  Plain \Plain\, v. i. [OE. playne, pleyne, fr. F. plaindre. See
     {Plaint}.]
     To lament; to bewail; to complain. [Archaic & Poetic]
     --Milton.
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           We with piteous heart unto you pleyne.   --Chaucer.
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From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48 [gcide]:

  Plain \Plain\, v. t.
     To lament; to mourn over; as, to plain a loss. [Archaic &
     Poetic] --Sir J. Harrington.
     [1913 Webster]

From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48 [gcide]:

  Plain \Plain\, a. [Compar. {Plainer}; superl. {Plainest}.] [F.,
     level, flat, fr. L. planus, perhaps akin to E. floor. Cf.
     {Llano}, {Piano}, {Plan}, {Plane} level, a level surface.]
     1. Without elevations or depressions; flat; level; smooth;
        even. See {Plane}.
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              The crooked shall be made straight, and the rough
              places plain.                         --Isa. xl. 4.
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     2. Open; clear; unencumbered; equal; fair.
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              Our troops beat an army in plain fight. --Felton.
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     3. Not intricate or difficult; evident; manifest; obvious;
        clear; unmistakable. "'T is a plain case." --Shak.
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     4.
        (a) Void of extraneous beauty or ornament; without
            conspicious embellishment; not rich; simple.
        (b) Not highly cultivated; unsophisticated; free from show
            or pretension; simple; natural; homely; common. "Plain
            yet pious Christians." --Hammond. "The plain people."
            --A. Lincoln.
        (c) Free from affectation or disguise; candid; sincere;
            artless; honest; frank. "An honest mind, and plain."
            --Shak.
        (d) Not luxurious; not highly seasoned; simple; as, plain
            food.
        (e) Without beauty; not handsome; homely; as, a plain
            woman.
        (f) Not variegated, dyed, or figured; as, plain muslin.
        (g) Not much varied by modulations; as, a plain tune.
            [1913 Webster]
  
     {Plain battle}, open battle; pitched battle. [Obs.]
        --Chaucer.
  
     {Plain chant} (Mus.) Same as {Plain song}, below.
  
     {Plain chart} (Naut.), a chart laid down on Mercator's
        projection.
  
     {Plain dealer}.
        (a) One who practices plain dealing.
        (b) A simpleton. [Obs.] --Shak.
  
     {Plain dealing}. See under {Dealing}.
  
     {Plain molding} (Join.), molding of which the surfaces are
        plain figures.
  
     {Plain sewing}, sewing of seams by simple and common
        stitches, in distinct from fancy work, embroidery, etc.;
        -- distinguished also from designing and fitting garments.
        
  
     {Plain song}.
        (a) The Gregorian chant, or {canto fermo}; the prescribed
            melody of the Roman Catholic service, sung in unison,
            in tones of equal length, and rarely extending beyond
            the compass of an octave.
        (b) A simple melody.
  
     {Plain speaking}, plainness or bluntness of speech.
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     Syn: Level; flat; smooth; open; artless; unaffected;
          undisguised; frank; sincere; honest; candid; ingenuous;
          unembellished; downright; blunt; clear; simple;
          distinct; manifest; obvious; apparent. See {Manifest}.
          [1913 Webster]

From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48 [gcide]:

  Plain \Plain\, v. t. [imp. & p. p. {Plained}; p. pr. & vb. n.
     {Plaining}.] [Cf. {Plane}, v.]
     1. To plane or level; to make plain or even on the surface.
        [R.]
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              We would rake Europe rather, plain the East.
                                                    --Wither.
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     2. To make plain or manifest; to explain.
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              What's dumb in show, I'll plain in speech. --Shak.
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From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48 [gcide]:

  Plain \Plain\, adv.
     In a plain manner; plainly. "To speak short and pleyn."
     --Chaucer. "To tell you plain." --Shak.
     [1913 Webster]

From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48 [gcide]:

  Plain \Plain\, n. [Cf. OF. plaigne, F. plaine. See {Plain}, a.]
     1. Level land; usually, an open field or a broad stretch of
        land with an even surface, or a surface little varied by
        inequalities; as, the plain of Jordan; the American
        plains, or prairies.
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              Descending fro the mountain into playn. --Chaucer.
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              Him the Ammonite
              Worshiped in Rabba and her watery plain. --Milton.
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     2. A field of battle. [Obs.] --Arbuthnot.
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              Lead forth my soldiers to the plain.  --Shak.
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From WordNet (r) 2.0 [wn]:

  plain
       adj 1: clearly apparent or obvious to the mind or senses; "the
              effects of the drought are apparent to anyone who sees
              the parched fields"; "evident hostility"; "manifest
              disapproval"; "patent advantages"; "made his meaning
              plain"; "it is plain that he is no reactionary"; "in
              plain view" [syn: {apparent}, {evident}, {manifest}, {patent}]
       2: not elaborate or elaborated; simple; "plain food"; "stuck to
          the plain facts"; "a plain blue suit"; "a plain
          rectangular brick building" [ant: {fancy}]
       3: lacking patterns especially in color [syn: {unpatterned}]
          [ant: {patterned}]
       4: not mixed with extraneous elements; "plain water"; "sheer
          wine"; "not an unmixed blessing" [syn: {sheer}, {unmingled},
           {unmixed}]
       5: free from any effort to soften to disguise; "the plain and
          unvarnished truth"; "the unvarnished candor of old people
          and children" [syn: {unvarnished}]
       6: lacking embellishment or ornamentation; "a plain hair
          style"; "unembellished white walls"; "functional
          architecture featuring stark unornamented concrete" [syn:
          {unembellished}, {unornamented}]
       7: lacking stylistic embellishment; "a literal description";
          "wrote good but plain prose"; "a plain unadorned account
          of the coronation"; "a forthright unembellished style"
          [syn: {literal}, {unembellished}]
       8: comprehensible to the general public; "written for the
          popular press in plain nontechnical language" [syn: {popular}]
       9: lacking in physical beauty or proportion; "a homely child";
          "several of the buildings were downright homely"; "a plain
          girl with a freckled face" [syn: {homely}]
       n 1: extensive tract of level open land; "they emerged from the
            woods onto a vast open plain"; "he longed for the fields
            of his youth" [syn: {field}, {champaign}]
       2: a basic knitting stitch [syn: {knit}, {knit stitch}, {plain
          stitch}]
       adv : unmistakably (`plain' is often used informally for
             `plainly'); "the answer is obviously wrong"; "she was
             in bed and evidently in great pain"; "he was manifestly
             too important to leave off the guest list"; "it is all
             patently nonsense"; "she has apparently been living
             here for some time"; "I thought he owned the property,
             but apparently not"; "You are plainly wrong"; "he is
             plain stubborn" [syn: {obviously}, {evidently}, {manifestly},
              {patently}, {apparently}, {plainly}]
       v : express complaints, discontent, displeasure, or unhappiness;
           "My mother complains all day"; "She has a lot to kick
           about" [syn: {complain}, {kick}, {sound off}, {quetch}, {kvetch}]
           [ant: {cheer}]

From Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0 [moby-thes]:

  508 Moby Thesaurus words for "plain":
     Attic, Bohemian, Ciceronian, Lebensraum, Mickey Mouse, Spartan,
     abrupt, absolute, absolutely, affable, agricultural region,
     air space, all-embracing, all-encompassing, all-out, all-pervading,
     apparent, arable land, articulate, artless, ascetic, audible,
     austere, back country, bald, bare, baseborn, basic, beautiless,
     below the salt, billiard table, black belt, blemished, blotted,
     bluff, blunt, born, born yesterday, bowling green, broad,
     broad-based, brusque, cacophonic, cacophonous, campestral,
     campestrian, campo, candid, casual, champaign, chaste, cheerful,
     childlike, citrus belt, classic, classical, clean, clean-cut,
     clear, clear as crystal, clear as day, clear space, clear-cut,
     clearance, clearing, cockney, coherent, colorless, comfortable,
     common, commonplace, comprehensive, confiding, congenital,
     connected, consistent, conspicuous, consummate, contrastive,
     cordial, corn belt, cotton belt, countryside, cozy, crisp,
     crystal-clear, crystalline, cushy, dead flat, dead level,
     deep-dyed, defaced, defined, definite, degage, desert, direct,
     discernible, discreet, disfigured, distant prospect, distinct,
     distinctive, down, downright, drab, dry, dull, dust bowl,
     dyed-in-the-wool, dysphemistic, dysphemized, earth, easy,
     easy as pie, easygoing, effortless, egregious, elegant, elementary,
     empty view, esplanade, essential, even, everyday, evident,
     exhaustive, explicit, express, facile, familiar, farm belt,
     farm country, farmland, featureless, finished, flat, flatland,
     flattened, floor, flush, folksy, forthright, frank, frankhearted,
     free, free and easy, free-speaking, free-spoken, free-tongued,
     friendly, fruit belt, fundamental, garden, garden-variety, genuine,
     glade, glaring, glib, graceful, gracile, gracious, graphic,
     grass roots, grassland, grazing region, ground, guileless, haymish,
     hearable, heart-to-heart, heath, hi-fi, high-fidelity, highlands,
     homaloid, homaloidal, homelike, homely, homespun, homey, homish,
     homogeneous, honest, horizontal, horizontal axis, horizontal fault,
     horizontal line, horizontal parallax, horizontal plane,
     horizontal projection, household, humble, humble-looking,
     humble-visaged, humblest, humdrum, ill-favored, in focus,
     indisputable, indivisible, indubitable, inelegant, informal,
     ingenu, ingenuous, inglorious, innocent, innocuous, insipid,
     intelligible, intensive, intimate, irreducible, irregular,
     irretrievably, irrevocably, lean, least, ledge, legible, level,
     level line, level plane, light, limpid, living space, llano, loose,
     loud and clear, low, lowborn, lowbred, lowest, lowlands, lowliest,
     lowly, lucid, luminous, manifest, marred, matter-of-fact, mead,
     meadows and pastures, mean, mean sea level, mere, modest,
     monolithic, moor, moorland, moors, mundane, muted, naive, natural,
     neat, nonclerical, nondescript, nothing to it, noticeable,
     observable, obvious, of a piece, offhand, offhanded, omnibus,
     omnipresent, open, open country, open space, open-and-shut,
     openhearted, ordinary, out-and-out, outback, outright, outspoken,
     painless, palpable, pampas, parterre, pasture, patent, peaceful,
     pedestrian, pellucid, perceivable, perceptible, perfect, perfectly,
     perspicuous, pervasive, plain as day, plain-speaking, plain-spoken,
     plains, plane, plateau, platform, plebeian, plumb, poetryless,
     polished, poor, prairie, prairies, primal, primary, prominent,
     pronounced, prosaic, prose, prosing, prosy, province, provinces,
     pure, pure and simple, quite, radical, refined, regular, relaxed,
     restrained, right, rolled, round, rude, rural district, rustic,
     rustic region, savanna, sea level, sea of grass, seeable,
     self-evident, self-explaining, self-explanatory, severe,
     shabby-genteel, sheer, short, short on looks, simon-pure, simple,
     simple as ABC, simple-speaking, simplehearted, simpleminded,
     sincere, single, single-hearted, single-minded, small, smooth,
     smoothed out, smoothened, snug, sober, sociable, soft, spare,
     spartan, spoiled, squashed, squashed flat, staring, stark, steppe,
     steppes, straight, straight-out, straightforward, sweeping, table,
     tabloid, tabular, tangible, tasteful, teachable, terrace, terrain,
     territory, terse, the country, the soil, the sticks, third-estate,
     thorough, thoroughgoing, through-and-through, tiresome, to be seen,
     tobacco belt, total, translucent, transparent, transpicuous, trim,
     trodden, trodden flat, trustful, trusting, tundra, ubiquitous,
     uglified, ugly, ugly as hell, ugly as sin, unadorned,
     unadulterated, unaesthetic, unaffected, unalluring, unambiguous,
     unassuming, unattractive, unbeauteous, unbeautiful, unburdensome,
     unceremonious, unchecked, uncluttered, uncomely, uncomplicated,
     unconcealed, unconditional, unconfused, unconstrained,
     unconventional, undecorated, understandable, undifferenced,
     undifferentiated, undiluted, undisguised, undissembled,
     undissembling, undistinguished, unelaborate, unembellished,
     unenhanced, unequivocal, unfeigned, ungarnished, ungenteel,
     unguarded, unhandsome, unidealistic, uniform, unimaginative,
     unimpassioned, unimportant, universal, univocal, unlabored,
     unlovely, unluxurious, unmistakable, unmitigated, unmixed,
     unofficial, unornamented, unostentatious, unpleasing, unpoetic,
     unpoetical, unpretending, unpretentious, unpretty, unqualified,
     unrelievedly, unremarkable, unreserved, unrestrained, unrestricted,
     unromantic, unsightly, unsophisticated, unstudied, unsuspicious,
     unvarnished, unwary, uplands, utter, vapid, veld, veldt, veritable,
     visible, vivid, vulgar, water level, well-defined, well-marked,
     well-pronounced, well-resolved, wheat belt, wholesale,
     wide-open spaces, wilderness, wold, woodland, woods and fields,
     workaday, workday, yokeldom
  
  

From The Free On-line Dictionary of Computing (27 SEP 03) [foldoc]:

  PLAIN
       
          Programming LAnguage for INteraction.  Pascal-like, with
          extensions for database, string handling, exceptions and
          pattern matching.  "Revised Report on the Programming Language
          PLAIN", A. Wasserman, SIGPLAN Notices 6(5):59-80 (May 1981).
       
       

From Easton's 1897 Bible Dictionary [easton]:

  Plain
     (1.) Heb. 'abel (Judg. 11:33), a "grassy plain" or "meadow."
     Instead of "plains of the vineyards," as in the Authorized
     Version, the Revised Version has "Abel-cheramim" (q.v.), comp.
     Judg. 11:22; 2 Chr. 16:4.
     
       (2.) Heb. 'elon (Gen. 12:6; 13:18; 14:13; 18:1; Deut. 11:30;
     Judg. 9:6), more correctly "oak," as in the Revised Version;
     margin, "terebinth."
     
       (3.) Heb. bik'ah (Gen. 11:2; Neh. 6:2; Ezek. 3:23; Dan. 3:1),
     properly a valley, as rendered in Isa. 40:4, a broad plain
     between mountains. In Amos 1:5 the margin of Authorized Version
     has "Bikathaven."
     
       (4.) Heb. kikar, "the circle," used only of the Ghor, or the
     low ground along the Jordan (Gen. 13:10-12; 19:17, 25, 28, 29;
     Deut. 34:3; 2 Sam. 18:23; 1 Kings 7:46; 2 Chr. 4:17; Neh. 3:22;
     12:28), the floor of the valley through which it flows. This
     name is applied to the Jordan valley as far north as Succoth.
     
       (5.) Heb. mishor, "level ground," smooth, grassy table-land
     (Deut. 3:10; 4:43; Josh. 13:9, 16, 17, 21; 20:8; Jer. 48:21), an
     expanse of rolling downs without rock or stone. In these
     passages, with the article prefixed, it denotes the plain in the
     tribe of Reuben. In 2 Chr. 26:10 the plain of Judah is meant.
     Jerusalem is called "the rock of the plain" in Jer. 21:13,
     because the hills on which it is built rise high above the
     plain.
     
       (6.) Heb. 'arabah, the valley from the Sea of Galilee
     southward to the Dead Sea (the "sea of the plain," 2 Kings
     14:25; Deut. 1:1; 2:8), a distance of about 70 miles. It is
     called by the modern Arabs the Ghor. This Hebrew name is found
     in Authorized Version (Josh. 18:18), and is uniformly used in
     the Revised Version. Down through the centre of this plain is a
     ravine, from 200 to 300 yards wide, and from 50 to 100 feet
     deep, through which the Jordan flows in a winding course. This
     ravine is called the "lower plain."
     
       The name Arabah is also applied to the whole Jordan valley
     from Mount Hermon to the eastern branch of the Red Sea, a
     distance of about 200 miles, as well as to that portion of the
     valley which stretches from the Sea of Galilee to the same
     branch of the Red Sea, i.e., to the Gulf of Akabah about 100
     miles in all.
     
       (7.) Heb. shephelah, "low ground," "low hill-land," rendered
     "vale" or "valley" in Authorized Version (Josh. 9:1; 10:40;
     11:2; 12:8; Judg. 1:9; 1 Kings 10:27). In Authorized Version (1
     Chr. 27:28; 2 Chr. 26:10) it is also rendered "low country." In
     Jer. 17:26, Obad. 1:19, Zech. 7:7, "plain." The Revised Version
     renders it uniformly "low land." When it is preceded by the
     article, as in Deut. 1:7, Josh. 11:16; 15:33, Jer. 32:44; 33:13,
     Zech. 7:7, "the shephelah," it denotes the plain along the
     Mediterranean from Joppa to Gaza, "the plain of the
     Philistines." (See {VALLEY}.)
     

From U.S. Gazetteer (1990) [gazetteer]:

  Plain, WI (village, FIPS 63125)
    Location: 43.27829 N, 90.04218 W
    Population (1990): 691 (293 housing units)
    Area: 1.8 sq km (land), 0.0 sq km (water)
    Zip code(s): 53577

From U.S. Gazetteer Places (2000) [gaz-place]:

  Plain, WI -- U.S. village in Wisconsin
     Population (2000):    792
     Housing Units (2000): 339
     Land area (2000):     0.731058 sq. miles (1.893431 sq. km)
     Water area (2000):    0.000000 sq. miles (0.000000 sq. km)
     Total area (2000):    0.731058 sq. miles (1.893431 sq. km)
     FIPS code:            63125
     Located within:       Wisconsin (WI), FIPS 55
     Location:             43.277580 N, 90.044563 W
     ZIP Codes (1990):     53577
     Note: some ZIP codes may be omitted esp. for suburbs.
     Headwords:
      Plain, WI
      Plain