plain – English adjective declension

English adjective forms of plain

Adjective: plain

Comparison Forms

Synthetic

Comparativeplainer
Superlativeplainest

Perifrastic

Sample Sentences

  • 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:]
  • The Vampyre Bat. Tailless bat with the nose plain, and the flying-membrane divided between the thighs. [1790, George Shaw, Speculum Linnaeanum, sive Zoologiae Linnaeanae illustratio:]
  • 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:]
  • a plain pink polycotton skirt
  • They're just plain people like you or me.
  • plain yet pious Christians [1654, Henry Hammond, Of Fundamentals:]
  • the plain people [1861, Abraham Lincoln, Message to Congress in Special Session, July 4th:]
  • Would you like a poppy bagel or a plain bagel?
  • 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):]
  • His answer was just plain nonsense.
  • 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:]
  • Our troops beat an army in plain fight. [1711, Henry Felton, Dissertation on Reading the Classics:]
  • Throughout high school she worried that she had a rather plain face.
  • Up to that time the girl had never really done her hair, and she regarded boots merely as things to protect the feet. Suddenly it dawned on her that she was considered plain and that she diffused an atmosphere of intellectual frost. [1927, Ernest Bramah [pseudonym; Ernest Brammah Smith], Max Carrados Mysteries:]

Adjectives inflected like plain

sallow, smooth, slight, sleigh, sordid, somber, shweet, shrill, shrewd, yellow, yaller, hard knock, DRY, Greek, cut short, unquiet, unclean, indiscreet, chipper, straicht, etc. (List truncated at 20 adjectives)

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, plane, and plan. See: Latin Adjectives 'plānus'.