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Plain   /pleɪn/   Listen
Plain

adverb
1.
Unmistakably ('plain' is often used informally for 'plainly').  Synonyms: apparently, evidently, manifestly, obviously, patently, plainly.  "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"



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"Plain" Quotes from Famous Books



... thought the doctor. "Well, I am glad Jane has him in tow. Poor souls! Providence has placed them in wise hands. If faithful counsel and honest plain-speaking can avail them anything, they will undoubtedly receive ...
— The Mistress of Shenstone • Florence L. Barclay

... of the ice-held figure were but slightly blurred, for it was only a few feet from the surface. It was that of a man, and it was plain that he was not an Eskimo. He was locked in a distorted position, as if caught unawares by a terrific weight of sliding snow. And he had been caught, seemingly, when in the act of ...
— Astounding Stories, July, 1931 • Various

... the speakers with his gaze for a moment and then went on imperturbably. "I'm going to talk to you in plain English, because some things have happened in this camp that are going to make trouble for everybody, trouble for me, trouble for McGuire, but more ...
— The Vagrant Duke • George Gibbs

... favour of established etiquette and customs, he remained inflexible, upon the ground that he, as master, had a right to confer what titles he chose within his own dominions on his own subjects; and that those foreigners who refused to submit to his regulations might return to their own country. This plain explanation neither effecting a conversion nor making any, impression, he grew warm, and left the refractory diplomatists with these remarkable words: "Were I to create my Mameluke Rostan a King, both you and your masters should ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre

... my right to support was decided in 1859, and in it a judge in my native city, charged the jury that: "If a wife have no dress and her husband refuse to provide one, she may purchase one—a plain dress—not silk, or lace, or any extravagance; if she have no shoes, she may get a pair; if she be sick and he refuse to employ a physician, she may send for one, and get the medicine he may prescribe; and for these necessaries the husband is liable, ...
— Half a Century • Jane Grey Cannon Swisshelm

... chapter it will be seen that simple plans are made capable of producing more elaborate effects by making use of the dotted lines. Indeed, one can make these designs quite intricate by dividing the different spaces as outlined in No. 2. A plain centre with a plain point, as shown in a, shows the bed in its very simplest form. In g, c, and d, we see these points with three different arrangements suggested, and the dotted line in the central portion indicates a change that can be made there that will ...
— Amateur Gardencraft - A Book for the Home-Maker and Garden Lover • Eben E. Rexford

... man for me Whose voice o'er hill and plain, Breaks forth for glorious liberty, But binds himself, the chain! The mightiest of the noble band Who prays and toils the world to free, With head, and heart, and voice, and vote— Oh that's ...
— The Liberty Minstrel • George W. Clark

... at the junction of the upper and lower roads, and wears an air of solidity, compared with its newer neighbours nearer town. It faces a small angle of lawn, backed by a hedge of rhododendrons, and is a plain, square, two-story dwelling with a porch, flanked by greenhouses; the walls are hidden behind ivy that climbs to the tiled roof. East of the Manor House rows of red-brick cottages on the north side stretch to Dyers Lane, and opposite is Putney Park Avenue, ...
— Hammersmith, Fulham and Putney - The Fascination of London • Geraldine Edith Mitton

... fellow, come, the song we had last night:— Mark it, Cesario; it is old and plain: The spinsters and the knitters in the sun, And the free maids, that weave their thread with bones, Do use to chant it: it is silly sooth, And dallies with the innocence of ...
— Twelfth Night; or, What You Will • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]

... next morning, and, at Harris's earnest desire, partook of a plain breakfast, with "non dainties." Then we cleaned up, and put everything straight (a continual labour, which was beginning to afford me a pretty clear insight into a question that had often posed me - namely, how a woman with the work of only one house on her hands manages to pass away her time), ...
— Three Men in a Boa • Jerome K. Jerome

... the Ripley sisters well were aware that plain speaking never vexed them. Beating about the bush from artificiality or ignoring a plain issue was the sort of thing they resented. Consequently, the directness of David Walker's sally did not appear to them a liberty, but merely a legitimate ...
— The Law-Breakers and Other Stories • Robert Grant

... "Some Records of the Thoughts and Reasonings of Children" (194), and President Hall has written about "Children's Lies" (252a), but we are still without a correspondingly accurate and extensive compilation of "The Thoughts and Reasonings of Parents," and a plain, unbiassed register of the "white lies" and equivoques, the fictions and epigrammatic myths, with which parents are wont to answer, or attempt to answer, the manifold questions of their tender offspring. From time immemorial ...
— The Child and Childhood in Folk-Thought • Alexander F. Chamberlain

... trees spread about, we do not notice that a part of them suffer. It is only in the plantations and orchards and gardens set apart by man for growing things quite foreign to the soil, that the damage is so plain. Nature never meant groves of oranges to flourish here, or they would have existed—at least, so it seems to me. As it is, we choose to settle down upon wild land that has been the home of the insects which annoy us ever since the beginning ...
— The Peril Finders • George Manville Fenn

... There was a clump of rhododendron at the head of the ravine, and near Steve's cabin. About this hour Marcum would be chopping wood for supper, or sitting out in his porch in easy range from the thicket. Crump's plan was plain: he was about his revenge early, and Isom ...
— The Last Stetson • John Fox Jr.

... bare as a table for fifty miles on either side the track,—a distance looking in the clear air not over one fifth as great. On every side this great plain was circled by mountains, the reddish-brown sides of some of them bare to the summits, while others were robed in folds of glistening snow and looked like white curtains drawn part way up the sky. The whitey-gray ...
— Deserted - 1898 • Edward Bellamy

... listened, she looked about, her eyes taking in impressions to be studied at leisure. These quarters of his in Paris were fundamentally different from those in New York, were the expression of a different side of his personality. It was plain that he loved them, that they came nearer to expressing his real—that ...
— Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise • David Graham Phillips

... forms in the two works, e.g. aupamya in Caraka, upamana in Nyaya sutra, arthapatti in Nyaya sutra and arthaprapti in Caraka. Caraka does not seem to know anything about the Nyaya work on this subject, and it is plain that the treatment of these terms of disputations in the Caraka is much simpler and less technical than what we find in the Nyaya sutras. If we leave out the varieties of jati and nigrahasthana of the fifth book, there is on the whole a great agreement ...
— A History of Indian Philosophy, Vol. 1 • Surendranath Dasgupta

... the man to take things for nothing, that was plain. And he seemed to have plenty of money about him, from the way his pocket bulged. Heaven only knew if he really had money ...
— Growth of the Soil • Knut Hamsun

... the midst of the surging crowd might be distinguished sundry honest citizens still in plain clothes indeed, but carrying along with them bayonetted muskets, thereby inspiring the rabble with peculiar valour, the common people always imagining in such cases that the national guard with its bayonets is quite equal to ...
— The Day of Wrath • Maurus Jokai

... the fact that each of the Rensselaers has a house on his estate, so placed as to be convenient to look after his interests; which interests he is to be at the trouble of changing, leaving him his house on his hands, because, forsooth, one of the parties to a plain and equitable bargain wishes to make better conditions than he covenanted for. I wonder what his Excellency proposes that the landlords shall do with their money when they get it? Buy new estates, and ...
— The Redskins; or, Indian and Injin, Volume 1. - Being the Conclusion of the Littlepage Manuscripts • James Fenimore Cooper

... them so plainly, remembering the trouble my last accounts did give me by being let alone a little longer than ordinary, by which I am to this day at a loss for L50, I hope I shall never commit such an error again, for I cannot devise where the L50 should be, but it is plain I ought to be worth L50 more than I am, and blessed be God the error was no greater. In the evening with my [wife] and Mercer by coach to take the ayre as far as Bow, and eat and drank in the coach by the way and with much pleasure ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys

... therefore with a profound and solemn interest—for the grave import of it was plain to him—that Tizoc, having ended his own statement, questioned us as to the full meaning of the words which we had spoken when first we entered the valley: that the prophecy of Chaltzantzin long since had been fulfilled, ...
— The Aztec Treasure-House • Thomas Allibone Janvier

... no one could or would appear for a Jewess, accused of sorcery; and the knights, instigated by Malvoisin, whispered to each other, that it was time to declare the pledge of Rebecca forfeited. At this instant a knight, urging his horse to speed, appeared on the plain advancing towards the lists. A hundred voices exclaimed, "A champion! a champion!" And despite the prepossessions and prejudices of the multitude, they shouted unanimously as the knight rode into the tiltyard, The second glance, ...
— Ivanhoe - A Romance • Walter Scott

... that day in the plain blue cotton dress which fitted her superb young figure to perfection! How well he remembered every detail of that ramble over the red hills—he could hear now the whistle of a bob white sitting on ...
— The Root of Evil • Thomas Dixon

... and blocky; his shoulders welted with brawn; his chest was two hairy hills, like a gorilla's, while across his stomach muscles lay ridged like ropes. His waist was thick with pones of sinew bulging over the hips, as one sees in the statue of Discobolus. It was plain that Greer had labored tremendously all his life and that his strength was ...
— The Cruise of the Dry Dock • T. S. Stribling

... terrible ride between Front Royal and Luray. Beverly had never been so cold in all her life. She let Apache choose his own way, and take his own gait, which was now slow and doubtful, and then like an arrow, as his confidence grew. Luray was reached in time and skirted, then all was plain sailing to Sprucy Branch fourteen miles beyond. Apache had often been to Luray and knew every inch of that road, but Beverly was by that time nearly numb from ...
— A Dixie School Girl • Gabrielle E. Jackson

... to have been plain to the proprietors, in their monstrous conceit of political wisdom, that communities so constituted should have been the last on which to impose the uniformity of an established church. John Locke did see this, but was overruled. The Church of England ...
— A History of American Christianity • Leonard Woolsey Bacon

... It was plain to Sandy that Sam and Mormon, despite Sam's protest, took Molly's pleasantry in earnest and he made no comment as Mormon deftly shuffled the deck and riffled it out over the table. He picked a jack, Mormon a three of clubs and ...
— Rimrock Trail • J. Allan Dunn

... to us, Who supplies the fuel, and who does the stoking on the sun? Before we answer this we must try to get some idea of the size of this stupendous body. It is not the least use attempting to understand it by plain figures, for the figures would be too great to make any impression on us—they would be practically meaningless; we must turn to some other method. Suppose, for instance, that the sun were a hollow ball; then, if the earth were set at the centre, the moon could revolve round her ...
— The Children's Book of Stars • G.E. Mitton

... that men become, to some extent, like the country in which they live. In the plain country the inhabitants learn to traffic, come to regard money-getting as the great object in life, and have but a dim perception of those higher emotions from which spring the noblest acts. In a mountain ...
— The Citizen-Soldier - or, Memoirs of a Volunteer • John Beatty

... metaphysical science, poetry, and art, each in their turn join in the harmony, independent, yet ministering to the whole. If from the poem itself we could be for a single moment in doubt of the reality and dominant place of religion in it, the plain-spoken prose of the Convito would show how he placed "the Divine Science, full of all peace, and allowing no strife of opinions and sophisms, for the excellent certainty of its subject, which is God," is single perfection above all other sciences, "which are, as Solomon speaks, but queens or ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various

... education was of a more feminine sort than that which was followed at the Madras Academy; for, as announced in the prospectus, it included 'Reading and Writing, the English language and Arithmetic; Music, French, Drawing and Dancing; with Lace, Tambour, and Embroidery, all sorts of Plain and Flowered needle-work.' The two syllabuses are interesting reminders as to what were the usual subjects of education for European boys and girls a century ...
— The Story of Madras • Glyn Barlow

... and may be called an embryo, and compared to seed sown in the ground, which, through heat and moisture, grows by degrees to a perfect form in plant or grain. The third time assigned to make up this fabric is when the principal parts show themselves plain; as the heart, whence proceed the arteries, the brain, from which the nerves, like small threads, run through the whole body; and the liver, which divides the chyle from the blood, brought to it by the vena porta. ...
— The Works of Aristotle the Famous Philosopher • Anonymous

... outrages of robbery and murder, for which the sachems of the tribes were not responsible. The Mohegans, under Uncas, had become very powerful. They had a fierce fight with the Narragansets. Miantunnomah was taken captive. Uncas put him to death upon Norwich plain by splitting his head open with a hatchet. The Mohegan sachem tore a large piece of flesh from the shoulder of his victim, and ate it greedily, exclaiming, "It is the sweetest meal I ever tasted; ...
— King Philip - Makers of History • John S. C. (John Stevens Cabot) Abbott

... that, Mr Vanslyperken," replied Moggy, calmly; "but that has nothing to do with the present affair: you have come of your own accord to this house to see somebody, that is plain, and you have found me. So now do as you're bid, like a polite man; sit down, and treat the ladies. Ladies, Mr Vanslyperken stands treat, and, please the pigs, we'll make a night of it. What shall it be? I mean to take my share of a bottle of ...
— Snarley-yow - or The Dog Fiend • Frederick Marryat

... to be grateful for. It won't be plain sailing—I don't expect it; but, if I live, I'll do something to be proud of," said Ralph, squaring his shoulders as if to meet and conquer all obstacles as he looked into the glowing west, which was not ...
— Jack and Jill • Louisa May Alcott

... thought of man, by which, to her living conscience and errorless pointing of magnetic soul, her distant home is felt afar beyond the horizon, and the straight path, through concealing clouds, and over trackless lands, made plain to her desire, and her duty, by the finger ...
— On the Old Road, Vol. 2 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin

... across an African plain the sun shone down hotly. Then I drew my horse up under a mimosa-tree, and I took the saddle from him and left him to feed among the parched bushes. And all to right and to left stretched the brown earth. And ...
— Dreams • Olive Schreiner

... that a muzhik's life is a hard one. Yes, for us plain folk life is hard. Hence, one ought to make nothing of things, and let them come easy ...
— Through Russia • Maxim Gorky

... was speaking I was ready to sink through the ground; it was all so true. As I listened, I could identify every offender, and I was fitting caps all the time—this is so-and-so, that is the other man, all over. I tell you they were all as plain as in a picture—speaking likenesses not of their bodies only, but ...
— Works, V1 • Lucian of Samosata

... once he fancied he heard a stealthy footstep that climbed on in the darkness before him, and he paused suddenly, but, hearing nothing, strode on, then stopped again for, plain enough this time, some one stumbled on the stair above him. So he stood there in the gloom, very still and very silent, and thus he presently heard another sound, very soft and faint like the ...
— The Amateur Gentleman • Jeffery Farnol et al

... came presently to a great plain, across which he rode all day long without seeing a single house, and horse and rider were terribly hungry, when, as the night fell, the Prince ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf (Vol 2 of 17) - Folk-Lore, Fables, And Fairy Tales • Various

... usual selfishness, took his rising popularity as a matter of course and as the fruits of his own work; he was rising, he was making valuable speeches, he was becoming a social power, and his only handicap was his plain and over-ambitious wife. But on the other hand Mrs. Cresswell forgot two pitfalls: the cleft between the old Southern aristocracy and the pushing new Southerners; and above all, her own Northern birth and ...
— The Quest of the Silver Fleece - A Novel • W. E. B. Du Bois

... cool and provoking; and still, as he stared at her, the Lord Proprietor wondered more and more whence in the world she came. He knew little of female beauty (the late Lady Hutchins had been plain-featured) and less of clothes; but three or four times in his life, at public functions, he had mixed with the great ones of the land, and here patently was one of them. Her speech, dress, bearing, all proclaimed it; her easy self-possession, too, and air of authority. Out of what Olympus ...
— Major Vigoureux • A. T. Quiller-Couch

... stranger hyarabouts," he suggested, "I reckon hit hain't no more then plain charity ter forewarn ye. She's got a lavish of lovers an' thar's some several amongst 'em that's pizen mean—mean enough ter prove up vi'lent and murderous ter any ...
— The Roof Tree • Charles Neville Buck

... he employed the time in cutting up his unwritten paper into squares of an inch, and making them into pellets with which he prevented the Dowbiggin mind from being too much absorbed in study. He did this once too often, and Bulldog went down to call upon him with a cane and with plain, ...
— Young Barbarians • Ian Maclaren

... signs the Prince discovered the den of the sleeping serpent, and there they surprised the fox, who, seeing the vast array on the sides of the mountain and on the plain, quickly took refuge in flight. But a host of eagles and falcons tore after him and overtook him near a great lake. Here he changed himself into a duck with six wings, and dived and disappeared. Presently, far away on the ...
— Edmund Dulac's Fairy-Book - Fairy Tales of the Allied Nations • Edmund Dulac

... be a great many different-looking birds in this Finch family," said Rap, "if plain Sparrows and yellow Goldfinches both belong to it." "Indeed there are! Did I not say that there were both Quakers and soldiers in it?" said the Doctor. "For in addition to the Goldfinch there is a bright-blue cousin ...
— Citizen Bird • Mabel Osgood Wright and Elliott Coues

... but too extravagant in color and pattern to bear inspection by daylight. The other parts of the dress are sufficiently quiet to pass muster; the bonnet and veil are only old-fashioned, and the cloak is of a sober gray color. But one plain inference can be drawn from such a discovery as this. As certainly as I sit here, she is going to open the campaign against Noel Vanstone and Mrs. Lecount in a character which neither of those two persons can have any possible ...
— No Name • Wilkie Collins

... Plain-livin's nearly, bored us stiff. The Major calls on Rowe To devise an entertainment. What his charger doesn't know Isn't in the regulations. Him 'n' Rowe is brothers met, 'N' that horse's sense iv humor ...
— 'Hello, Soldier!' - Khaki Verse • Edward Dyson

... the question of expediency with you," he said hastily, "any further than to say that I'd cheerfully give ten years of my life to be able to consider it. Let me be perfectly plain: This evidence I am speaking of involves you personally. If the papers are put into Judge Hemingway's hands there will be a searching investigation, prompt indictments, criminal proceedings, and all the disgrace that the widest publicity can bring upon the men who are responsible ...
— The Honorable Senator Sage-Brush • Francis Lynde

... is only, as its name indicates, the port of the ancient Tiber. The road which leads from Transtevere runs along the river, which rolls through a plain strewn with ruins and indented with barren hills, its brackish water discolored from the sand and ...
— Cosmopolis, Complete • Paul Bourget

... around me. On one side was a basin, its projecting rim carved with marvellously intricate tracery, while the waters within were tinted with all the colours of the rainbow. On the other side appeared a mass greatly resembling an ancient castle. It rose more than forty feet above the plain, while in its midst was a turret of still greater dimensions. A succession of steps, formed by the substances in the water which had become hardened, led up to it, ornamented with bead and shell ...
— In the Rocky Mountains - A Tale of Adventure • W. H. G. Kingston

... the third Day of her Enlargement, being Summer Time, she propos'd to her Mother that she would take a Walk to a Cousin of hers, who liv'd about four Miles thence, to intreat her to be one of her Bride-Maids, being then in a careless plain Dress, and having before discours'd very pleasantly and freely of her Wedding-Day, of what Friends she would have invited to that Solemnity, and what Hospitality Sir Robert should keep when she was marry'd to him: All which was ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume V • Aphra Behn

... Longuemare, his face paling, "this is a solemn moment. God help me! It is plain we shall die without spiritual aid. It must be that in other days I have received the sacraments lukewarmly and with a thankless heart, for Heaven to refuse me them to-day, when I have such pressing need ...
— The Gods are Athirst • Anatole France

... the same service from three men, and that each had answered me with the single word yes, accompanied by a gesture of the hand. If one of them had let his thumb approach the forefinger, it is plain to me that he would deceive me, for his thumb thus placed tells me that he ...
— Delsarte System of Oratory • Various

... that, I mean, where you set and try to figure out all about 'em, what kind of homes they got, and how they act when they ain't in a swell restaurant, and everything. Pretty soon comes a couple to the table next us and, say, they was just plain Mr. and Mrs. Mad. Both of 'em stall-fed. He was a large, shiny lad, with pink jowls barbered to death and wicked looking, like a well-known clubman or villain. The lady was spectacular and cynical, with a cold, thin nose and eyes like a couple of glass marbles. Her hair was several shades off ...
— Somewhere in Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson

... of this book is to present the important characters which it is necessary to observe, in an interesting and intelligible way, to present life-size photographic reproductions accompanied with plain and accurate descriptions. By careful observation of the plant, and comparison with the illustrations and text, one will be able to add many species to the list of edible ones, where now perhaps is collected "only the one which is pink underneath." The chapters 17 to 21 should ...
— Studies of American Fungi. Mushrooms, Edible, Poisonous, etc. • George Francis Atkinson

... as big as Lightfoot, but it is very plain that he doesn't want to fight," thought Sammy. "He must be ...
— The Adventures of Lightfoot the Deer • Thornton W. Burgess

... rushed with his troops in pursuit of Barclay, and overtook two Russian columns on the plain of Valoutina behind a small muddy stream, over which they had to throw a bridge. Here a keenly contested fight cost us the life of General Gudin, when obstinately carrying the passage at the point of the bayonet. Our columns were embarrassed in their attack ...
— Worlds Best Histories - France Vol 7 • M. Guizot and Madame Guizot De Witt

... began drawing out slowly and with great show of carefulness a small package, which Sprigg instinctively knew to be the object of his heart's desire. The next moment, held high aloft in pap's right hand, there they were at last, in plain view before his eyes, the long dreamed of red moccasins. How beautiful looked they. Trimmed with the finest of fur and glittering all over with the brightest of beads, to say nothing of the color—red, as the reddest of leather could be, not ...
— The Red Moccasins - A Story • Morrison Heady

... Captain John Hopkins strode ahead, his gun over his shoulder. Goodwife Hopkins rode the gray horse, and the girls rode by turns, two at a time, clinging to the pillion at her back. Letitia was never allowed to wear her own pretty plain dress, with the velvet ...
— The Green Door • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman

... a large plain in Media, near the Caspian mountains, was famous for breeding the finest horses, which were allotted to the use of kings only; or, according to Xenophon, those favourites on whom the sovereign thought proper to bestow them. See ...
— Trips to the Moon • Lucian

... "That plain white-aproned man who stood at work, Patient and accurate, full fourscore years, Cherished his sight and touch by temperance; And, since keen sense is love of perfectness, Made perfect Violins, the needed ...
— The Violin - Its Famous Makers and Their Imitators • George Hart

... and calmer;" simple but memorable words, expressive of the mild heroism of the man. About six he sank into a deep sleep; once for a moment he looked up with a lively air, and said, "Many things were growing plain and clear to him!" Again he closed his eyes; and his sleep deepened and deepened, till it changed into the sleep from which there is no awakening; and all that remained of Schiller was a lifeless form, soon to be mingled with the clods ...
— The Life of Friedrich Schiller - Comprehending an Examination of His Works • Thomas Carlyle

... Perhaps some of you who have spent a summer day or a summer week in Venice do not recognize this feeling; but if you will remain there, not four years as we did, but a year or six months even, it will ever afterwards be only too plain. All changes, all events, were affected by the inevitable local melancholy; the day was as pensive amidst that populous silence as the night; the winter not more pathetic than the long, tranquil, lovely summer. We rarely sentimentalized consciously, and still more seldom ...
— Venetian Life • W. D. Howells

... Golden Goose has strange feathers. If his feathers are plucked out against his wish, they no longer remain golden but turn white and are of no more value than chicken-feathers. The new ones that come in are not golden, but plain white. ...
— More Jataka Tales • Re-told by Ellen C. Babbitt

... let down, and give shade and coolness to the rooms therein. In some of them the visitor walked from the compound, or garden, directly into the dining-room; large, airy, with neither curtains, nor carpeting, nor matting, but with polished boards as flooring. The furniture here was generally plain and almost scanty, for, except at meal- times, the ...
— In Times of Peril • G. A. Henty

... blood. Here, fighting for the freedom of the world, they cheerily gave their all. On that sloping meadow to the left of the row of houses on the opposite ridge the London Scottish fought to the death on that grim November morning when the Bavarians reeled back from their shot-torn line. That plain away on the other side of Ypres was the place where the three grand Canadian brigades, first of all men, stood up to the damnable cowardly gases of the Hun. Down yonder is Hill 60, that blood-soaked kopje. The ridge over the fields was held by the cavalry against two army corps, and there ...
— A Visit to Three Fronts • Arthur Conan Doyle

... made the matter quite plain where I ought, before the judges; besides, if it was untrue, why didn't your son ...
— The Comedies of Terence - Literally Translated into English Prose, with Notes • Publius Terentius Afer, (AKA) Terence

... almost sure to be worldly advance. We can hardly imagine bucolic placidity quickening to intellectual aims without imagining social aims as the transitional phase. Yeobright's local peculiarity was that in striving at high thinking he still cleaved to plain living—nay, wild and meagre living in many respects, and ...
— The Return of the Native • Thomas Hardy

... constructed to enable vessels to avoid the bar of the Rhne. This canal is 2 m. long, 196 ft. wide, and 22 ft. deep. To understand the geography of this desolate flat region of land and water, exposed to every wind, it is necessary to ascend the "tour Saint Louis," whence the plain, intersected by the Rhne and numerous canals, appears literally like a map. The only villages seen in the vast expanse are Fos, on a hill, and near it ...
— The South of France—East Half • Charles Bertram Black

... practical sense, never lost sight of the end of government, in his view of the means; and he believed that in interpreting the constitution, we ought not to look at it through a microscope, for this plain reason, if for no other, because those who are finally to decide on it look at it with their ordinary eyes. Accordingly, in the first half of his speech, he aimed to show that congress had the power to pass the law, and in the last, that they ought ...
— The American Quarterly Review, No. 17, March 1831 • Various

... Pop. (1900) 520,246; area, 8451 sq. m. Badajoz is thus the largest province of the whole kingdom. Although in many districts there are low ranges of hills, the surface is more often a desolate and monotonous plain, flat or slightly undulating. Its one large river is the Guadiana, which traverses the north of the province from east to west, fed by many tributaries; but it is only at certain seasons that the river-beds fill with ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 2 - "Baconthorpe" to "Bankruptcy" • Various

... at Father. He was still talking half under his breath, his eyes looking straight ahead. He had forgotten all about me. That was plain to be seen. If I'd been a cup of coffee without any coffee in it, he'd have been stirring me. I know he would. ...
— Mary Marie • Eleanor H. Porter

... and accompanied with clearer evidence:—while others think of it as part of a covenant made up with Abraham, the fulfilment of which was in good faith to be first offered to his posterity. I ask this only because the Barrister professes to find every thing in the four Gospels so plain and easy. ...
— Coleridge's Literary Remains, Volume 4. • Samuel Taylor Coleridge

... white paper in the basket, with a little space all around. It was a rather small loaf with a plain icing. But round the sides of it were trailed long sprays of ivy geranium, making a beautiful bordering. The centre was crowned with a white camellia in its perfection. From the tip edge of each outer petal depended a drop of gold, made to adhere there by some strong gum probably; and between the ...
— Say and Seal, Volume II • Susan Warner

... following morning, and with it the whole of the fleet. The garrison, consisting of 1,600 men, could easily have been intercepted had it not been for a large body of cavalry and a number of cannon, which completely commanded a plain of a mile and a half in breadth, necessary to be crossed to get to them: as we had neither the one nor the other, it would have been the height of folly to attempt it. The regiments which distinguished themselves ...
— The Life and Correspondence of Sir Isaac Brock • Ferdinand Brock Tupper

... and valleys here, with smoke of suppers rising. Trains are so small that a child might draw them with a string. Far-off hills are tumbled and in confusion, as if a giant were roused and had flung his rumpled cloak upon the plain. ...
— Chimney-Pot Papers • Charles S. Brooks

... bountiful, plentiful; fecund, fertile, luxuriant, prolific, exuberant, teeming, productive; sumptuous, luxurious; delicious, luscious, hearty, nutritive gorgeous, elegant, beautiful; vivid, bright, intense. Antonyms: poor, infertile, indigent, plain. ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming

... man would doubtless see very much to condemn in the conduct of the Church of England under the Stuarts. But was he therefore to join the King and the Catholics against that Church? And was it not plain that, by so doing, he would assist in setting up a spiritual despotism, compared with which the despotism of the Establishment was as a little finger to the loins, as a rod of whips ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... Bamboos grow luxuriantly on all sides, and the inhabitants of the various valleys obtain their livelihood by manufacturing from them all sorts of articles: boxes for every conceivable purpose; baskets, fine and coarse, large and small, useful and ornamental, coloured and plain; brushes, pipes, battledores and shuttlecocks, sticks, spoons, knives and forks, sauce ladles, boats, ...
— A Voyage in the 'Sunbeam' • Annie Allnut Brassey

... fantastical fashion in dress, both in cut and gay colors, nor more sumptuousness in costume or luxury in display among the upper classes, and such squalor in low life. The press teemed with tracts and pamphlets, written in language "as plain as a pikestaff," against the immoralities of the theatres, those "seminaries of vice," and calling down the judgment of God upon the cost and the monstrosities of the dress of both men and women; while the town ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner

... ordain the relationship of involuntary servitude, property in the services of others, by purchase of their persons. While this is so, suppose that every servant is an Onesimus and every master such as I ought to be, under the influence of the Apostle Paul's directions! It is plain that in no way can we better promote the spiritual and eternal good of certain men, as the times are, than by standing in the relation of Christian masters to them. This is the great thing with Paul. We can mitigate the sorrows of their bondage; we can compensate for the appointments of ...
— The Sable Cloud - A Southern Tale With Northern Comments (1861) • Nehemiah Adams

... that they can run with great rapidity on all-fours is qualified by McMaster, who easily ran down a large male on horseback on getting him out on a plain. ...
— Natural History of the Mammalia of India and Ceylon • Robert A. Sterndale

... the plot thickened! Here was a mystery, and she held the clew to it! It was very plain that Mademoiselle Melanie did not wish these two ...
— Fairy Fingers - A Novel • Anna Cora Mowatt Ritchie

... any of the four plain walls of the office; there was no focus of outer-world sunlight on the desk there. Yet the five disks set out on its surface appeared to glow—perhaps the heat of the mischief they could cause ... had caused ... blazed ...
— The Defiant Agents • Andre Alice Norton

... three of the boat's crew, for the purpose of ascending the highest point of the You-yang range, whose conical peaks, standing up purple against the evening sky, had been visible when the ship first entered Port Phillip. "Our way was over a low plain, where the water appeared frequently to lodge. It was covered with small-bladed grass, but almost destitute of wood, and the soil was clayey and shallow. One or two miles before arriving at the feet of the hills, we entered a wood, where an emu and a kangaroo were seen at a distance; and the top ...
— The Life of Captain Matthew Flinders • Ernest Scott

... and the schools also are accurately described by several writers, especially by the "Monasticon," where their antiquity and original is fully set forth. The outside of the church is as plain and coarse as if the founders had abhorred ornaments, or that William of Wickham had been a Quaker, or at least a Quietist. There is neither statue, nor a niche for a statue, to be seen on all the outside; no carved work, no spires, towers, ...
— From London to Land's End - and Two Letters from the "Journey through England by a Gentleman" • Daniel Defoe

... the stock-in-trade an' hired a couple o' rooms—the self-same rooms you see: and then she ate less 'n a mouse an' took in needle-work, plain an' fancy: for a lot o' the gentry's wives round the neighbourhood befriended her—though they had to be sly an' hide that they meant it for a favour, or she'd ha' snapped their heads off. An' all the while, she was teachin' her boy and tellin' 'en, whatever happened, to remember ...
— The Delectable Duchy • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... how any can make use of Christ, we must speak something of their necessity of him, and of his being furnished fitly, fully, richly, and satisfyingly for their case; and this will make the way of use-making of Christ more plain. ...
— Christ The Way, The Truth, and The Life • John Brown (of Wamphray)

... Jaggers, warming the backs of his legs with the backs of his warmed hands, "I'll be plain with you, my friend Pip. That's a question I must not be asked. You'll understand that better, when I tell you it's a question that might compromise me. Come! I'll go a little further with you; I'll say ...
— Great Expectations • Charles Dickens

... Upsala," said the Moon: "I looked down upon the great plain covered with coarse grass, and upon the barren fields. I mirrored my face in the Tyris river, while the steamboat drove the fish into the rushes. Beneath me floated the waves, throwing long shadows on the so-called graves of Odin, Thor, ...
— Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen

... Commandment are plain and outward, which we commonly call worship,[23] such as going to mass, praying, and hearing a sermon on holy days. So understood there are very few works in this Commandment; and these, if they are not done in assurance of and with faith in God's favor, are nothing, as was said above. Hence ...
— Works of Martin Luther - With Introductions and Notes (Volume I) • Martin Luther

... a Chief Commissioner sent round a circular to every division of police employed in London, requiring instantly the names in all districts of all such much-puffed streets or courts which no man durst go down; and suppose that in such circular he gave plain warning, 'If those places really exist, they are a proof of police inefficiency which I mean to punish; and if they do not exist, but are a conventional fiction, then they are a proof of lazy tacit police connivance with professional crime, which I also mean to punish'—what ...
— The Uncommercial Traveller • Charles Dickens

... inkling of it before it gained full expression; indeed, every man who advocated the undulatory theory of light and heat was verging towards the goal. The doctrine of Young and Fresnel was as a highway leading surely on to the wide plain of conservation. The phenomena of electro-magnetism furnished another such highway. But there was yet another road which led just as surely and even more readily to the same goal. This was the road furnished by the phenomena of heat, and the men who travelled it were destined ...
— A History of Science, Volume 3(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams

... vagaries of this fashion in phrasing for several years, I have come to the conclusion that the plain "Sir" of former times,—which, to the "well-brought-up" child, was a practical application of the Fifth Commandment,—is much to be preferred to the fussy elaboration of personal address that has ...
— Etiquette • Agnes H. Morton

... freestone, and the public walk planted with poplars, are the only objects which break the sameness of the landscape. The view of the peak, as it presents itself above Santa Cruz, is much less picturesque than that we enjoy from the port of Orotava. There, a highly cultured and smiling plain presents a pleasing contrast to the wild aspect of the volcano. From the groups of palm trees and bananas which line the coast, to the region of the arbutus, the laurel, and the pine, the volcanic rock is crowned with luxuriant ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America • Alexander von Humboldt

... extremely deficient. It was accordingly determined to unite all the divisions of the army with Bluecher on the west of Leipzig, and to attack the French as soon as they descended from the hilly country of the Saale, and began their march across the Saxon plain. The Allies took post at Luetzen: the French advanced, and at midday on the 2nd of May the battle of Luetzen began. Till evening, victory inclined to the Allies. The Prussian soldiery fought with the utmost spirit; ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe

... quite calm, and exquisitely beautiful, dressed in a plain grey bodice and kirtle, with a black band round her slim waist and a soft white kerchief folded across her bosom. Beneath the tiny, white cap her golden hair appeared in dainty, curly profusion; her child-like, oval face was very white, ...
— I Will Repay • Baroness Emmuska Orczy

... all of the competing lines of large ocean steamers to great losses. By restricting their carrying accommodations it would also stay the current of emigration that it is our policy to encourage as well as to protect. A good bill, correctly phrased, and expressing and naming in plain, well-known technical terms the proper and usual places and decks where passengers are and ought to be placed and carried, will receive my prompt and immediate assent as a public necessity ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 2 (of 2) of Volume 8: Chester A. Arthur • James D. Richardson

... embryos of the Bhrigu race, this child was held by me in my thigh for a hundred years! And in order that the prosperity of Bhrigu's race might be restored, the entire Vedas with their branches came unto this one even while he was in the womb. It is plain that this scion of the Bhrigu race, enraged at the slaughter of his fathers, desireth to slay you! It is by his celestial energy that your eyes have been scorched. Therefore, ye children, pray ye unto this my excellent child ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli

... out of sight, before I observed a tall, handsome, soldierly man, though in plain clothes, ride past the carriage on a very fine horse, followed by a groom in a plain dark frock, with a cockade in ...
— Valerie • Frederick Marryat

... living frugally, working constantly, fearing God and debt, and rearing large families. "A German farm may be distinguished," concludes this writer, "from the farms of other citizens by the superior size of their barns, the plain but compact form of their houses, the height of their enclosures, the extent of their orchards, the fertility of their fields, the luxuriance of their meadows, and a general appearance of plenty and neatness in everything that belongs to them."[26] Rush's praise ...
— Our Foreigners - A Chronicle of Americans in the Making • Samuel P. Orth

... the women to place themselves round her, and desired them to sing certain songs, which they did in a strong, clear voice. She then prophesied of the coming year, and afterwards, all that would advanced and asked her such questions as they thought proper, to which they received plain answers." ...
— The Elder Eddas of Saemund Sigfusson; and the Younger Eddas of Snorre Sturleson • Saemund Sigfusson and Snorre Sturleson

... plain that she was to serve her Savior in the music lesson as indeed she does. For she goes into every house as a missionary. She carries the spirit of Christ in her heart. His joy is radiant in her face. She preaches the Gospel in houses where ...
— Laicus - The experiences of a Layman in a Country Parish • Lyman Abbott

... order the Cid's body was placed in the Church of San Pedro de Cardena, where for ten years it remained seated in a chair of state, and in plain view of all. Such was the respect which the dead hero inspired that none dared lay a finger upon him, except a sacrilegious Jew, who, remembering the Cid's proud boast that no man had ever dared lay a hand upon his beard, once attempted to do so. Before he could touch it, however, ...
— Legends of the Middle Ages - Narrated with Special Reference to Literature and Art • H.A. Guerber

... the hills above us gain sublimity; the prospect over plain and sea—the fields where Luna was, the widening bay of Spezzia—grows ever grander. The castle is a ruin, still capable of partial habitation, and now undergoing repair—the state in which a ruin looks most sordid and forlorn. How strange it is, too, that, to enforce ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Second Series • John Addington Symonds

... worse than before, in replying that I meant no compliment, but the plain truth; though I was not aware of any change having taken place in the weather. It was in the state of my own feelings, I added bashfully: ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens

... Both the sheet of paper and the envelope were plain, and bore no clew of the hotel in which they ...
— Owen Clancy's Happy Trail - or, The Motor Wizard in California • Burt L. Standish

... and a few friends used annually to visit the plains of the Brahmaputra, near the Garrow Hills—an entirely virgin country then, and swarming with large game. Yule used to describe his once seeing seven rhinoceroses at once on the great plain, besides herds of wild buffalo and deer of several kinds. One of the party started the theory that Noah's Ark had been shipwrecked there! In those days George Yule was the only man to whom the Maharajah of ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo Volume 1 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa

... I believe, sir! But it's plain enough that if mis'ess hadn't 'a' been better off than me, she wouldn't ha' been able to secure my services—as you ...
— Stephen Archer and Other Tales • George MacDonald

... Dalrymple. It is merely the fact that her sympathies are with ugly things, rather than with pretty things. I think she loves the mahogany dinner-table better than anything else in the house; and she likes to have everything dark, and plain, and solid." ...
— The Last Chronicle of Barset • Anthony Trollope

... servant-boys know?" T'an Ch'un replied. "Those you chose for me were plain yet not commonplace. Neither were they of coarse make. So were you to procure me as many as you can get of them, I'll work you a pair of slippers like those I gave you last time, and spend twice as much trouble over them as I did over that pair you have. Now, what do ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin

... theological necessities of missionary work are many, and that they must be recognized and met before it can fully accomplish its infinite design. Indeed, the rule of Jesus in all these aspects of His mission clarifies and simplifies the gospel. It is plain that such a gospel, wherein the living personality of the Christ deals with the living man to whom we minister, is not to be beset by complications and abstractions. Its spiritual topography embraces the height of good, the depth of love, the breadth of sympathy, and the width of catholicity. ...
— The World's Great Sermons, Volume 10 (of 10) • Various

... morning the poor inhabitants were roused from their sleep by the noise of the cannon, intermingled with the dismal shrieks and hideous yellings of the cossacks belonging to the Russian army. Alarmed at this horrid noise, I ascended the church-steeple, from whence I beheld the whole plain, extending from the little suburb to the forest, covered with the enemy's troops, and our light horse, supported by the infantry, engaged in different places with their irregulars. At eight I descried a body of the enemy's infantry, whose van consisted of four or five thousand ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett

... from a quarter to half a cubic mile of vacuum. It made an earth-shock and a concussion wave, and it battered your ship until it went out of control. It would seem to make sense that the tumult and the shouting would appear here, where plain force was operating without much guidance, but not in your time where the machinery and the controls were operating. Your people had to handle more energy there—and consequently acted upon more ...
— Long Ago, Far Away • William Fitzgerald Jenkins AKA Murray Leinster

... the panel at once, with four figures standing next to it. In a moment they were in plain sight, waving as the plane passed overhead. Rick did a wing over that took the plane back over the area. This time he watched the terrain carefully, while ...
— The Blue Ghost Mystery • Harold Leland Goodwin

... table, and looked into the silver cup in which she had mixed the powder—it was empty! "The God of Righteousness hath punished him!" exclaimed Amine; "but O! that this man should have been my father! Yes! it is plain. Frightened at his own wicked, damned intentions, he poured out more wine from the flagon, to blunt his feelings of remorse, and not knowing that the powder was still in the cup, he filled it up and drank himself—the death he meant for another! ...
— The Phantom Ship • Frederick Marryat

... our old cradle in which all of us children were rocked! We were a large family, and that old cradle was going a good many years. I remember just how it looked. It was old-fashioned and had no tapestry. Its two sides and canopy were of plain wood, but there was a great deal of sound sleeping in that cradle, and many aches and pains were soothed in it. Most vividly I remember that the rockers, which came out from under the cradle, were on the top ...
— T. De Witt Talmage - As I Knew Him • T. De Witt Talmage

... is, unless we can find Elma. It is all very dreadful, very horrible. I suppose the plain English of the matter is this"—here Carrie gulped something down in her throat—"that she—she stole your money and ...
— Wild Kitty • L. T. Meade

... a letter of E. G. Booth, to F. C. Stainbrook, written in that plain familiar style of one friend to another, which characterises the man, with an evident intent to do good; though it was not designed for publication, we give it because we believe it will do others good, as well as the recipient. Mr. Booth confirms our opinion often expressed, that ...
— Guano - A Treatise of Practical Information for Farmers • Solon Robinson

... us to—give. And when we remember how he said to his disciples, "If ye love me, keep my commandments," we see plainly, that we have no right to consider ourselves as his disciples if we are neglecting this or any other of his plain commands. ...
— The Life of Jesus Christ for the Young • Richard Newton

... to subject us to the necessity either to abandon those measures of defense or to resort to the other means for adequate funds, the course presented to the adoption of a virtuous and enlightened people appeared to be a plain one. It must be gratifying to all to know that this necessity does not exist. Nothing, however, in contemplation of such important objects, which can be easily provided for, should be left to hazard. It is thought that the revenue may receive an augmentation from the existing sources, and ...
— State of the Union Addresses of James Monroe • James Monroe

... with the uttering: on the trial he was the principal witness, though the Duke denied his accusation, and "declared all the ill he could devise of Palmer." It was not necessary to "devise" much. It was soon plain that Palmer's arrest was a mere farce. He was not only released, but was appointed, March 4, 1552, one of the commissioners to treat with Scotland. In 1553 he proved true to his friend Northumberland, and shared his fate. Two versions of his dying speech are given, ...
— Robin Tremain - A Story of the Marian Persecution • Emily Sarah Holt

... have done long before; and if they preferred to rest their declaration of war upon the formal pretext of a breach of treaty rather than upon the real ground, no further objection could be taken to that course, seeing that diplomacy has always reckoned it beneath its dignity to speak the plain truth in plain language. But to make an armed attack upon the fleet without warning, instead of summoning the admiral to retrace his course, was a foolish no less than a barbarous act—one of those horrible barbarities ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen

... to a ride in the Pampas. They are sometimes seen in coveys of twenty or thirty, gliding elegantly along the undulations of the plain, at half pistol-shot from each other, like skirmishers. The young are easily domesticated, and soon become attached to those who caress them; but they are troublesome inmates; for, stalking about the house, they will, when full grown, swallow coin, shirt-pins, and every small article ...
— The Mirror, 1828.07.05, Issue No. 321 - The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction • Various

... is. If any mans work abide, which he hath built thereupon, he shall receive a reward: If any mans work shall bee burnt, he shall suffer losse; but he himself shall be saved, yet so as by fire." Which words, being partly plain and easie to understand, and partly allegoricall and difficult; out of that which is plain, may be inferred, that Pastors that teach this Foundation, that Jesus Is The Christ, though they draw from it false consequences, (which all men are sometimes subject to,) ...
— Leviathan • Thomas Hobbes

... impossible to define. It will be seen that the country of the tribe is not deprived of seaboard nor completely mountainous. The two ports of Dellys and Bougie were their sea-cities, and gave the French infinite trouble: the plain between the two is the great wheat-growing country, where the Kabyle farmer reaps a painful crop with his ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Volume 11, No. 26, May, 1873 • Various

... just five years ago, last summer, when I left the Tents of Kedar. I now reside about a mile hence. It is but a hundred yards off the high road, and if you would not object to step aside and suffer a rasher, or aught else, to be 'the shoeing-horn to draw on a cup of ale,' as our plain forefathers were wont wittily to say, why, I shall be very happy to show you my habitation. You will have a double welcome, from the circumstance of my having been absent from home for ...
— The Disowned, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... Mandril must have upon the Plain of the Ring, when the Ring should have 10. or 12 Inches; and finds, that it would make but 6 or 7. minutes of inclination, and that a Glass would have less Convexity, and consequently, less difference from a Glass perfectly plain, than the 7. or 8. part of a Line. And then he leaveth it to be judged, whether a Glass of such a Length being found, we ought to hope, that a Turn can be firm enough to keep such a piece of Glass in the same Inclination, ...
— Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society - Vol 1 - 1666 • Various

... the neat, strong figure arrayed in the plain khaki uniform of a private soldier, at the clean-shaven, square-jawed face, at the fearless grey-blue eyes, could doubt either his honesty or earnestness. Courage was imprinted by Nature's never-erring hand on every ...
— Campaign Pictures of the War in South Africa (1899-1900) - Letters from the Front • A. G. Hales

... various constituents of white light and displayed them in the form of a series of overlapping images of the aperture, each of a different colour; this series of images we call a spectrum, and the operation we now call spectrum analysis. The reason of the defect of lenses was now plain: it was not so much a defect of the lens as a defect of light. A lens acts by refraction and brings rays to a focus. If light be simple it acts well, but if ordinary white light fall upon a lens, its different constituents ...
— Pioneers of Science • Oliver Lodge

... at the wheel, and supposing all sorts of orders, and all kinds of positions in which the tug might be placed. He did not seem even to observe what his companion was doing, though the engineer had been driven into the forecastle in plain sight from the window of ...
— Taken by the Enemy • Oliver Optic

... be anything but pretty or hideous. There is no middle, and no suspicion about them. If a woman is, what they perhaps would call "suspicious"—then there is a man's influence behind her—so find the man (and it is easy) and she is as plain as a card on the table. Baroness B. is pretty. And if she likes to talk like a Pythia,—that's her way of ...
— Rescuing the Czar - Two authentic Diaries arranged and translated • James P. Smythe

... herself up in horizon blue, and was the hit of the afternoon. The men forgot war and the horrors of war and surrendered to her art and her selections with an abandon which betrayed their superior intelligence, for she is a very plain woman. Miss O'Brien, an Irish girl who has spent her life in Paris and looks like the pictures in some old Book of Beauty—immense blue eyes, tiny regular features, small oval face, chestnut hair, pink-and-white skin, and a tall "willowy" figure—was second in their ...
— The Living Present • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton

... a plain and unpretending account of the life of a man whose own right arm—to use his own expression—won his rights as a freeman. It is written with the utmost simplicity, and has about it the verisimilitude which belongs to truth, and to truth only when told ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 100, February, 1866 • Various

... were, all three tangled together in Dicky's complicated draw-net. He held them all, Lucia by her honour, Poppy by her vanity, and him, Rickman, by the lusts and follies of his youth. This was what it had led him to, that superb triumphal progress of the passions. In language as plain as he could put it, he—he—had been offered a bribe to advertise Poppy Grace for the benefit of Dicky, who kept her. To advertise a little painted—he disposed of poor Poppy in a powerful word which would have given ...
— The Divine Fire • May Sinclair

... the year 1850 were not quite so prosperous. During that summer Mrs Browning had been seriously ill. When sufficiently recovered she was carried by her husband to a villa in the midst of vines and olives, a mile and a half or two miles outside Siena, which commanded a noble prospect of hills and plain. At first she could only remain seated in the easy-chair which he found for her in the city. For a day there was much alarm on behalf of the boy, now able to run about, who lay with heavy head and glassy ...
— Robert Browning • Edward Dowden

... Signora Tintoretta, but I was well acquainted with her reputation, character and manners. She was but a poor dancer, neither handsome nor plain, but a woman of wit and intellect. Prince Waldeck spent a great deal for her, and yet he did not prevent her from retaining the titulary protection of a noble Venetian of the Lin family, now extinct, a man about sixty years of age, who was her visitor at every hour of the day. This nobleman, who ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt

... with an account of the treatment that I, with other of my fellow citizens, received on board the Jersey and John prison ships, those monuments of British barbarity and infamy. I shall give you nothing but a plain simple statement of facts that cannot be controverted. And I begin my narrative from the time of my ...
— American Prisoners of the Revolution • Danske Dandridge

... good Abimelech, that you would write your thoughts in as plain and straight forward a manner as you can; for, I assure you, I have been very much puzzled with some parts of your last letter; which I cannot yet say that I understand. In some places it is very plain that you hint at Mr. Clifton, and wish me not to dally with him; and, as I know you ...
— Anna St. Ives • Thomas Holcroft

... eloquent of possibilities for unrestraint when she felt the close-drawn rein of his authority. Again he felt her rebellious little tugs, and the wrench of her final defiance when she did the awful thing. He had been told by a plain speaker that her revolt was the fault of his severity. And here was the flesh of her flesh—was it in the same spirit of revolt against authority, a thousandfold magnified? Might he not by according the boy ...
— The Seeker • Harry Leon Wilson

... asking for the prohibition of the book. The recommendation of the censor was disregarded, and General Terrero, fearful that Rizal might be molested by some of the many persons who would feel themselves aggrieved by his plain picturing of undesirable classes in the Philippines, gave him for a bodyguard a young Spanish lieutenant, Jose Taviel de Andrade. The young men soon became fast friends, as they had artistic and other ...
— Lineage, Life, and Labors of Jose Rizal, Philippine Patriot • Austin Craig

... much better mounted and armed than that of the Scots, and in their archers, who were better trained than any others in the world. Both these advantages he resolved to provide against. With this purpose, he led his army down into a plain near Stirling, called the Park, near which, and beneath it, the English army must needs pass through a boggy country, broken with water courses, while the Scots occupied hard, dry ground. He then caused all the ground upon the front of his line of battle, where cavalry were likely ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 5 • Charles Sylvester

... yet, on the contrary, you seem to understand me very well. However, I will put my questions in a more precise manner, in order that you may not be able, in the slightest degree, to evade them. Listen to me: Do you love M. de Bragelonne? That is plain enough, is it not?" ...
— Ten Years Later • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... Joshua slew his ferocious enemies in the valley.... God has triumph in His hand and will give it to whom He pleases. He gave it to Spain in Covadonga, in Las Navas, in El Salado, in the river of Seville, on the plain of Granada, and in a thousand battles which overflow the pages of history. O Lord, give it us now! Let the nations see that against the right of might there is the might ...
— The Philippine Islands • John Foreman

... mother have crimson heads and necks and throats. They have white breasts. They have black backs and wings and tails. When they fly, the broad white bands on the wings are quite plain to ...
— Stories of Birds • Lenore Elizabeth Mulets

... such other impediments as serve to break the current in its progress from the noxious source. It is an obvious fact, that the noxious cause, or the exhalation in which it is enveloped, ascends as it traverses the adjacent plain, and that its impression is augmented by the adventitious force with which it strikes upon ...
— The Prairie Traveler - A Hand-book for Overland Expeditions • Randolph Marcy

... we find at first steep rocks, like a mountain which seems to roll into the sea. Then the mountains gradually recede; a plain (El Ghoueir) opens almost at the level of the lake. It is a delightful copse of rich verdure, furrowed by abundant streams which proceed partly from a great round basin of ancient construction (Ain-Medawara). ...
— The Life of Jesus • Ernest Renan

... back, my dear Monsieur!" she cried—"ah! how many regrets your absence has caused!—of what an insupportable ennui have we not been the victims! But you are looking better than when you left us; your journey has done you good; it is plain that you have ...
— My Little Lady • Eleanor Frances Poynter

... rapidly reaching the end of her girlhood as the lodger was nearing the limits of his drink-sapped strength, redoubled her efforts. It was very plain to her that he could not live much longer; death in delirium tremens was inevitable. After that, she decided, school would not keep, and she ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1921 • Various

... right and everybody else is wrong, a later writer—English of course—can find no better parallel of Balzac than Browning, and knows nothing in art so like the Pauline of la Peau de Chagrin as the Sistine Madonna. It is curious, this clash of opinions; and it is plain that one or other party must be wrong. Which is it? 'Qui trompe-t-on ici?' Is Taine a better judge than Mr. Leslie Stephen or Mr. Henry James? Or are Messrs. James and Stephen better qualified to speak with authority ...
— Views and Reviews - Essays in appreciation • William Ernest Henley

... Dr. Birch writes, they were duly dried in the sun, and then painted; for it is evident that they could not have been painted while wet. The simplest and probably the most common, process was to color the entire vase black. The under part of the foot was left plain. When a pattern was added, the outline, faintly traced with a round point on the moist clay, was carefully followed by the painter. It was necessary for the artist to follow his sketch with great rapidity, since the clay rapidly absorbed ...
— Museum of Antiquity - A Description of Ancient Life • L. W. Yaggy

... the camp hospital. In the second act you are to be in riding togs, smart in every detail, something very chic, that will show your figure to advantage; in the last act I want you exactly as you are this minute—this soft clingy gold gown, and the gold slippers, and your hair high and plain like that, with the band of dull gold around it. I wouldn't change an inch of you, not from your head ...
— Quin • Alice Hegan Rice

... yet quite done; I have one more class, and though last not least; were I to adopt that enigmatical style which made the fortune of the oracle of Apollo, I might add—and though least, greatest. But this, the oracular sublime, has now gone to the gipsies and the conjurors, and I must write plain ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. IX - [Contents: Harrington; Thoughts on Bores; Ormond] • Maria Edgeworth



Words linked to "Plain" :   chaste, unelaborate, beef, peneplane, rail, llano, peck, moor, mere, Olympia, alluvial plain, bellyache, vanilla, yammer, deplore, inelaborate, unpretentious, unadorned, mutter, solid-coloured, murmur, whine, crab, bleat, tundra, report, gnarl, unrhetorical, steppe, backbite, squawk, hen-peck, tailored, unpatterned, croak, Serengeti, literal, colloquialism, unattractive, gripe, grumble, patterned, obvious, lament, simple, cheer, ground, nag, bitch, austere, inveigh, bemoan, undecorated, pure, dry land, dry, grouse, trim, scold, land, stern, snowfield, severe, field, knitting stitch, solid-colored, bewail, direct, moorland, repine, grizzle, fancy, grouch, earth, yawp, protest, solid ground, terra firma, flat, holler, featureless, stark



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