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Plain   Listen
adjective
Plain  adj.  (compar. plainer; superl. plainest)  
1.
Without elevations or depressions; flat; level; smooth; even. See Plane. "The crooked shall be made straight, and the rough places plain."
2.
Open; clear; unencumbered; equal; fair. "Our troops beat an army in plain fight."
3.
Not intricate or difficult; evident; manifest; obvious; clear; unmistakable. "'T is a plain case."
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." "The plain people."
(c)
Free from affectation or disguise; candid; sincere; artless; honest; frank. "An honest mind, and plain."
(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.
Plain battle, open battle; pitched battle. (Obs.)
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.)
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.
Synonyms: Level; flat; smooth; open; artless; unaffected; undisguised; frank; sincere; honest; candid; ingenuous; unembellished; downright; blunt; clear; simple; distinct; manifest; obvious; apparent. See Manifest.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Plain" Quotes from Famous Books



... of clay and rough stones is piled. Possibly that race of cromlech builders bore the same relation to the temple builders described above that the builders of Kits Coty House, between Rochester and Maidstone, bore to the temple builders of Stonehenge on Salisbury Plain. If they had to retreat, as the ice-sheet was driven farther from the torrid zone, then by the theory of the Glacial Period the Cromlech men in both cases would at ...
— The Story of Extinct Civilizations of the West • Robert E. Anderson

... time, to be ready for her. The morning brought a pencilled note ("Surprisingly tidy hand," Eric commented, "seeing what she's like"), instinct with a new aloofness and restraint. "After your refreshingly plain hint that I was a nuisance to you, I determined that you should not have occasion to suffer from my importunity. You may lunch with us on Saturday, if you like. And I shall be very glad indeed to see you, but you must not feel that you are doing this to please ...
— The Education of Eric Lane • Stephen McKenna

... fortune, which folly may effect, instances abound; indeed, occurring as they do by the thousand day by day, they are so conspicuous that their recital would be beside our present purpose. But that good sense may be our succour in misfortune, I will now, as I promised, make plain to you within the narrow compass ...
— The Decameron, Volume I • Giovanni Boccaccio

... into the King's displeasure, touching the Divorce of Queen Katherine, and for refusing to take the Oath of Supremacy; for which he was committed to the Tower, and afterwards beheaded on Tower-Hill, July 6, 1635, and buried at Chelsey under a plain Monument. ...
— The Lives of the Most Famous English Poets (1687) • William Winstanley

... to pursue them into their inaccessible fastnesses, left the alcalde of Torres Vedras at Ericeira with instructions to capture the impostor dead or alive, and himself set out for Lisbon. He had scarcely reached the plain when Alvares, at the head of 700 men, swooped down upon the town and took the alcalde and his soldiers prisoners. He next wrote to the cardinal regent, ordering him to quit the palace and the kingdom. He then set out for Torres Vedras, ...
— Celebrated Claimants from Perkin Warbeck to Arthur Orton • Anonymous

... weak to fight in the open field. And it must be admitted that, as so often happens, Akenside's outward ensemble was eminently what the vulgar world terms "guyable." He was not a little of a fop. He was plain-featured and yet assuming in manner. He hobbled in walking from lameness of tell-tale origin,—a cleaver falling on his foot in childhood, compelling him to wear an artificial heel—and he was morbidly sensitive over it. His prim formality ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner

... plain (Deccan Plateau) in south, flat to rolling plain along the Ganges, deserts in west, ...
— The 2000 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.

... a divine revelation; he rejected the authority of the Vedas totally. He denied that he was divine, but distinctly claimed to be a plain and earnest man. All that he knew, he had discovered by insight and self-conquest. To assume that he was pre-existently divine and omniscient subverts the whole theory of his so-called "discovery," and is at variance ...
— Oriental Religions and Christianity • Frank F. Ellinwood

... paragraph has been making the circuit of the public papers, recommending the use of ashes of lignites, to preserve esculent roots. It may have originated with some dealer in lignites; but plain dealers would like to be ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 236, May 6, 1854 • Various

... impure substances in the blood, and keep it clean by more or less constant use. In acute cases, take frequent Turkish baths, to help elimination by way of the skin, and keep that organ active by frequent warm baths and vigorous friction with a moderately coarse towel. Let the diet be plain and moderate, never eating to excess, and drink freely of water, to keep the blood liquid, and practice the habit of breathing deeply, to oxygenate ...
— The Royal Road to Health • Chas. A. Tyrrell

... the Supreme Being, he was permitted to propose to him some Questions concerning his Administration of the Universe. In the midst of this Divine [Colloquy [6]] he was commanded to look down on the Plain below. At the Foot of the Mountain there issued out a clear Spring of Water, at which a Soldier alighted from his Horse to drink. He was no sooner gone than a little Boy came to the same Place, and finding a Purse of Gold which the Soldier had ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele

... the government of the colonies by the Whigs, during their long and perilous rule. If of the former kind, it is to be lamented that he concealed his deliberate convictions under an allegorical piece of humour. His disposition to "humbug" was so great, it was difficult to obtain a plain straightforward reply from him; but had the Secretary of State put the question to him in direct terms, what he thought of Lord Durham's "Responsible government," and the practical working of it under Lord Sydenham's and Sir Charles Bagot's administration, he would ...
— The Attache - or, Sam Slick in England, Complete • Thomas Chandler Haliburton

... tapestry! What taste! what mystery! It sings. It laughs. It crushes all the room. Why? Don't you know? Why, these are Gobelins! How plain it is that cunning craftsmen made them. This taste, this elegance swears with the rest— And you my Lord, were ...
— L'Aiglon • Edmond Rostand

... who can say with the Apostle: I know how to abound, and I know how to suffer need.[2] A thousand fall on the left hand of adversity, but ten thousand on the right hand of prosperity; for iniquity is the outcome of luxury, and the sin of the cities of the plain had its origin in a superabundance of bread; that is to say, in their wealth. To be frugal and devout is ...
— The Spirit of St. Francis de Sales • Jean Pierre Camus

... fascinating man. And then she was frightened, for he was "no carpet knight so trim," to whom cognac, and cigars, and time would be a balm: this man was essentially dramatic, a dangerous character, an article with which she was unfamiliar. He was frantic about this silly girl: that was plain to see. Why then was he so wretched, seeing she was as irrationally in love ...
— Richard Vandermarck • Miriam Coles Harris

... great worker," said Uncle Robert. "It is at work now, and has been working for many, many long years. It has not only made this flood-plain, but many others. Sometimes the river carries this dirt clear out into the sea, and sometimes it piles it up at its mouth so ...
— Uncle Robert's Geography (Uncle Robert's Visit, V.3) • Francis W. Parker and Nellie Lathrop Helm

... Humboldt is a lake of strong, brackish water, where the river empties into the natural basin, formed by the slant of the surrounding district of mountains, plain and desert, and where some of the water sinks into the ground and much of it evaporates, there being no surface outlet. In the latter part of the summer the water is at a very low stage, and stronger in mineral constituents. There we found the ...
— Crossing the Plains, Days of '57 - A Narrative of Early Emigrant Tavel to California by the Ox-team Method • William Audley Maxwell

... Sigmund stood On the torn and furrowed desert by the pool of Fafnir's blood, And the Serpent lay before him, dead, chilly, dull, and grey; And over the Glittering Heath fair shone the sun and the day, And a light wind followed the sun and breathed o'er the fateful place, As fresh as it furrows the sea-plain, ...
— Myths of the Norsemen - From the Eddas and Sagas • H. A. Guerber

... be, if there were any such animal as a jinx," laughed Darrin. "Your missing was just plain bad luck, ...
— Dave Darrin on Mediterranean Service - or, With Dan Dalzell on European Duty • H. Irving Hancock

... Institution again recorded their opposition to the Governors' desire for "the hasty erection in a few weeks of a building adapted only for instruction in Medical Science." They expressed their belief "that the first proper and most pressing measure to be adopted in execution of the plain expression of the testator's will and of the Charter is to commence forthwith a course of general instruction in the ordinary branches of a learned Collegiate education in the buildings now erected on the Burnside Estate." They added that "they see no difficulty ...
— McGill and its Story, 1821-1921 • Cyrus Macmillan

... fun we had the next morning in shaving his beard to my pattern, cutting his hair to match mine, and teaching him how to wear and how to take off gold-bowed spectacles! Really, they were electro-plate, and the glass was plain (for the poor fellow's eyes were excellent). Then in four successive afternoons I taught, him four speeches. I had found these would be quite enough for the supernumerary-Sepoy line of life, and it was well for me they were. For though he was good-natured, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 23, September, 1859 • Various

... plain that a coalition of two countries against us is possible now. The United States is regarded with feelings of extreme irritation by the two most warlike nations in the world, one on our eastern side and the other on the ...
— The Navy as a Fighting Machine • Bradley A. Fiske

... was electrical. Juan leaped to his feet as if elevated by springs, uttering a yell that might have been heard a mile or more on the open plain. But Juan did not run in a circle this time. Acting upon the mathematical theory that a straight line is the shortest distance between two points, the guide made a break for the spring, howling like a madman. The Pony Rider Boys looked on ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in New Mexico • Frank Gee Patchin

... hold the boys saw that each side of it had been built up with big partitions, something like the pigeon-holes in which bolts of cloth are stored in dry-goods shops—only much larger. Each of these spaces was labeled in plain letters with the nature of the stores to be placed there so that those in charge of the supplies would have no difficulty in laying their hands at once on whatever happened to be needed. Each space ...
— The Boy Aviators' Polar Dash - Or - Facing Death in the Antarctic • Captain Wilbur Lawton

... with me in battle! O thou of Kuru's race, even now I go with thee to Kurukshetra! I will do what thou hast said! Come thither, O chastiser of foes! Let thy mother, Jahnavi, O Bhishma, behold thee dead on that plain, pierced with my shafts, and become the food of vultures, crows, and other carnivorous birds! Let that goddess worshipped by Siddhas and Charanas, that blessed daughter of Bhagiratha, in the form of a river, who begat ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 2 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli

... configuration of the country, they might long have kept up a desultory contest, they would never have succeeded in expelling the invaders; for the simple reason that they were wholly unable to meet them in the plain. Most true it is that, during the war of independence, the people of the Peninsula gave numerous examples of bravery and devotion, and still more of long suffering and patient endurance for their country's sake. The irregular mode of warfare adopted ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 378, April, 1847 • Various

... away from Wanley, seemingly on a mere walk. He decided to follow her and only join her when she had gone some way. She walked with her head bent, walked slowly and with no looking about her. Presently it was plain that she meant to enter the wood. This was opportune. But he lost sight of her as soon as she passed among the trees. He quickened his pace; saw her turning off the main path among the copses. In his pursuit he got astray; he must have missed her ...
— Demos • George Gissing

... the fifth book, chapter 31. [Benedict. lib. v. c. 32. Sec. 2. p, 331.] The principal and most important, though not the longest, part of {123} the passage is happily still found in the original Greek, preserved in the "Parallels" of Damascenus. In its plain, natural, and unforced sense, this passage is so decidedly conclusive on the question at issue, that various attempts have been made to explain away its meaning, so as not to represent Irenaeus as believing that the souls of departed saints, between ...
— Primitive Christian Worship • James Endell Tyler

... interposition of rising grounds, woods, or 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 subject ...
— The Prairie Traveler - A Hand-book for Overland Expeditions • Randolph Marcy

... appeals only to the ignorant. This is a plain and probably a harsh assertion, nevertheless it is absolutely the simple truth. The language and the reasoning of the nostrum vender are not designed to appeal to the trained, educated mind, or to an individual possessing ...
— The Eugenic Marriage, Vol. 3 (of 4) - A Personal Guide to the New Science of Better Living and Better Babies • W. Grant Hague

... afraid of the penalties of her offence; and when she looked up, and saw by the flickering candlelight the image of the CRUCIFIED, and the sorrowful face of his Virgin Mother, both bending on her looks of tenderness and woe, which said, as plain as looks could say, "Child of my passion! soul, ransomed by my death! why wound me so deeply?" With a low cry, she threw herself on her pillow. "I shall never know peace again," her heart whispered; "I already ...
— May Brooke • Anna H. Dorsey

... above the level of the sea. It was situated about two miles in front of the issue of the Komayli defile, on elevated rocky ground. To the east and west rose lofty cliffs, and in front extended a wide plain. The scenery was magnificent. Here rose masses of jagged rock, topped with acacia and juniper trees, deep valleys intervened with rushing streams, while heights extended as far as the eye could range over a vast extent of country. Tom fancied that the army was to push ...
— The Three Admirals • W.H.G. Kingston

... appropriate action, 'that is the hand of Joseph Bagstock: of plain old Joey B., Sir, if you like that better! That is the hand, of which His Royal Highness the late Duke of York, did me the honour to observe, Sir, to His Royal Highness the late Duke of Kent, that it was the hand of Josh: a rough and tough, and possibly an up-to-snuff, old vagabond. Dombey, ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens

... There were ancient hair trunks, such as were in use seventy or eighty years ago, made of wood covered with cow hide, with the hair left on; there were leather portmanteaux with strong brass corners, tin trunks, and even plain wooden packing-cases. On the floor, and leaning against the boxes, stood a row of fair-sized linen bags, and a couple of ...
— The Manor House School • Angela Brazil

... each; and then, when they were fastened to this, carried them to Atropos, who spun the threads and made them irreversible, whence without turning round they passed beneath the throne of Necessity; and when they had all passed, they marched on in a scorching heat to the plain of Forgetfulness, which was a barren waste destitute of trees and verdure; and then towards evening they encamped by the river of Unmindfulness, whose water no vessel can hold; of this they were ...
— The Republic • Plato

... little way down the street, and Clemens had been there time and again. It was such a brief distance that he started out in his slippers and with no hat. But when he reached the corner where the house, a stone's-throw away, was in plain view he stopped. He did not recognize it. It was unchanged, but its outlines had left no impress upon his mind. He stood there uncertainly a little while, then returned and got the coachman, Patrick McAleer, to show him ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine

... whose presence on my youthful heart Fell, like bright Spring upon some herbless plain; How beautiful and calm and free thou wert In thy young wisdom, when the mortal chain Of custom thou didst burst and rend in twain, And walk as free as light ...
— Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli, Vol. I • Margaret Fuller Ossoli

... PLAIN FRUIT PUDDING OR BROWN BETTY.—Chop together one part seeded raisins and two parts good tart apples. Fill a pudding dish with alternate layers of the fruit and bread crumbs, finishing with the bread crumbs on top. Unless the apples are very juicy, moisten the whole with a tablespoonful of ...
— Science in the Kitchen. • Mrs. E. E. Kellogg

... us thus to discriminate between a nationality which is a mere posture and that which is a plain expression of positive organic life. When we measure the force of the latter we are compelled to a finer analysis, and its illustrations are to be sought in subtler manifestations. Webster well exemplifies, by the very rudeness ...
— Noah Webster - American Men of Letters • Horace E. Scudder

... demanded righteousness from men; but to begin with He was Love which sought their love in return. First the Exodus then Sinai; first Redemption then Law; first Love then Discipline. Through His Deeds and His Word by the prophets He had made all this clear and very plain. ...
— Jeremiah • George Adam Smith

... but I am better to-day. This place is perfectly lovely and grows upon me every day. But the Professor is entirely absorbed in his loss. He does not know it, or else thinks he does not show it, for he makes no complaint, but it is in every tone and word and look. It is plain that Louisa's ill-health, which might have weaned a selfish man from her, only endeared her to him; she was so entirely his object day and night, that he misses her and the care of her, as a mother does her sick child. If we ride out he says, "Here I often came ...
— The Life and Letters of Elizabeth Prentiss • George L. Prentiss

... which the father and the son were in unison;—and as to which the romantic heart of Miss Moggs, at home at Shepherd's Bush, always glowed with enthusiasm. That her brother was in love, was to her, of whom in truth it must be owned that she was very plain, the charm of her life. She was fond of poetry, and would read to her brother aloud the story of Juan and Haidee, and the melancholy condition of the lady who was loved by the veiled prophet. She sympathised with the false Queen's passion for Launcelot, and, ...
— Ralph the Heir • Anthony Trollope

... very plain expression of gratitude was in her eyes and smile as she answered, "No, I'm not tired, Mr. Linden—but I would as ...
— Say and Seal, Volume I • Susan Warner

... plain little meeting-house on Barnwell Street (One of the streets of the city of Cleveland.) in which the colored people—or a goodly portion of them—worship on Sundays. The seats are cushionless, and have perpendicular backs. ...
— The Complete Works of Artemus Ward, Part 1 • Charles Farrar Browne

... faded away, changing to a sickly pallor that grew to ashen gray, and then dissolved the low-hung, distorted shadows a quarter of a mile inland on either hand into a forbidding row of unbroken forest backed by plain, morass, and distant hills untipped by slanting rays. Overhead a bleak ruin of clouds drifted; underneath the river ran, a bilious yellow. The whole country so far as the eye could range was unmarred ...
— The Barrier • Rex Beach

... examination that the whole of it, or nearly so, is to be traced to Pepys or Penn. The locus classicus is as follows from Pepys's Diary of July 4th. 'In the evening Sir W. Penn came to me, and we walked together and talked of the late fight. I find him very plain, that the whole conduct of the late fight was ill.... He says three things must be remedied, or else we shall be undone by their fleet. 1. That we must fight in line, whereas we fight promiscuously, to our utter demonstrable ...
— Fighting Instructions, 1530-1816 - Publications Of The Navy Records Society Vol. XXIX. • Julian S. Corbett

... affords us greater delight than any other which is accessible to us." Hence, too, S. Gregory says: "The contemplative life has its most desirable sweetness which uplifts the soul above itself, opens the way to heavenly things, and makes spiritual things plain to the eyes of ...
— On Prayer and The Contemplative Life • St. Thomas Aquinas

... run in and bring us what we want for the table," he said. "The doctor must take us as he finds us; if the food is plain, he will acknowledge that the ...
— Heidi • Johanna Spyri

... glanced at the document, and read some few of the words on the outer fold, but they did not carry home to her mind any clear perception of their meaning. She was flurried at the moment, and the words, perhaps, were not very plain. Then she took up her note, and that was plain enough. It was very short, and ...
— The House of Heine Brothers, in Munich • Anthony Trollope

... of peasants had increased largely, some thirty or forty men armed with pikes, bills, and scythes being gathered in a body, while many more could be seen across the country hurrying over the white plain towards the spot. The windows of the lower apartment had been barricaded with planks, partly to keep out missiles, partly for warmth. A good fire now blazed in the centre, and the soldiers, confident in themselves and their leader, cracked grim jokes as, their ...
— The Lion of the North • G.A. Henty

... Sabbath is here. To the fields let us go. How fresh and how fair, In the still morning air, The bright golden grain Waves over the plain! It is God who ...
— The Pedler of Dust Sticks • Eliza Lee Follen

... the impression that Roosevelt was the dictator of the Navy Department, or that all, or most, of its notable achievements came from his suggestion, but the plain fact is, wherever you look at its most active and fruitful preparations for war, you find him vigorously assisting. The order he sent Commodore Dewey led directly to the chief naval event of the war, the destruction of the Spanish Fleet by our Asiatic Squadron ...
— Theodore Roosevelt; An Intimate Biography, • William Roscoe Thayer

... this army was a greater army, and between the two it was a duel of chieftains, of General Regules in the Sierra, of General Mendez on the plain. Deadlier antagonists might not be imagined. Mendez, he who had shot two Republican generals under the Black Decree, was above all men the likeliest to hold stubborn Michoacan for the Empire. But even he failed, because the man against him was ...
— The Missourian • Eugene P. (Eugene Percy) Lyle

... about it! He's here!" was exclaimed by several, as an important little man was pushed along, and the thickest crowd gave him passage. The little man borrowed a boy's cap to kneel on, adjusted a sort of microscopic glass to his nose, as if plain eyes had no adequate use to this scientific necessity, and he called up two volunteers to turn the corpses over, keep back the throng, give him light, and add imposition to apprehension. Finally he ...
— Bohemian Days - Three American Tales • Geo. Alfred Townsend

... later, a "plain drunk" was registered at the station in Nebraska's metropolis. When they searched him they found nothing in his pockets but a silver thimble, and Joe Benson, the policeman who had brought in the "drunk," gave it ...
— A Mountain Woman and Others • (AKA Elia Wilkinson) Elia W. Peattie

... other fowls were called "loves" and "dears," while hardly any people took notice of her plain white dress and rosy head-dress. But one gentle lady came ...
— Dick and His Cat and Other Tales • Various

... followed, and every man stood at his post; for boats could be seen going to and from the island, and it was plain enough to the meanest comprehension on deck that if they meant to aid the occupants of the fort they had ...
— Middy and Ensign • G. Manville Fenn

... come to pass. Those important matters that concern our salvation were not left involved in mystery. They were not revealed in such a way as to perplex and mislead the honest seeker after truth. Said the Lord by the prophet Habakkuk, "Write the vision, and make it plain, ... that he may run that readeth it."(917) The word of God is plain to all who study it with a prayerful heart. Every truly honest soul will come to the light of truth. "Light is sown for the righteous."(918) And no church can advance in holiness unless its members are earnestly ...
— The Great Controversy Between Christ and Satan • Ellen G. White

... honour was at stake and that his life was in peril.[90] As he was persuaded—perhaps rightly—he had been brought to this pass mainly through the intrigues of an unscrupulous pair.[91] His provocation was extreme. It was almost to be expected that he should use plain words when referring to foes as malignant as Medina and Castro. These two men he accused of deliberately organizing a conspiracy against him;[92] he spoke bluntly of Medina's 'hatred', 'rage', 'trickery', and 'lying';[93] he ...
— Fray Luis de Leon - A Biographical Fragment • James Fitzmaurice-Kelly

... sunlight. Yet he is true first cousin to the green and gold, or to the royal violet; has as fair a title to a place in your regard, and will prove it, if you will only wait his time. He is like those plain people whom we pass every day without notice, until some great trial or difficulty calls out a hidden power within them, and they flash into greatness in some noble action, and prove their kinship ...
— The Stories Mother Nature Told Her Children • Jane Andrews

... difficulty our Officer obtained an interview with the woman, who was greatly astonished at our having discovered her. She was dealt with faithfully and firmly: the plain truth of God set before her, and was covered with shame and remorse, and promised ...
— "In Darkest England and The Way Out" • General William Booth

... in matters feminine. His much-to-be-desired box seat is not infrequently embellished by the presence of Mrs. Cornelius Vanderbilt, who this year shows a preference for the varying shades of Quaker gray, and was recently admired in a cloth of that color made with a plain skirt and a blousing coat with bishop sleeves. Mrs. Alfred likewise leans modestly towards the dove and is shown at her best in a soft pale frock trimmed with passementerie of the same shade and topped by a large hat of black chip tipped well towards the right side. Mrs. Alfred is young enough ...
— The Onlooker, Volume 1, Part 2 • Various

... of the island are much fatter and better than those at the east end, though the latter has better and greater plenty of grass, with abundance of excellent water in the vallies, while the west end is a dry plain, the grass scanty and parched, and has hardly any wood or fresh water. Though fertile, this island has no inhabitants, who might live here in plenty, as the plain is able to maintain a great number of cattle, and the sea ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume X • Robert Kerr

... a plain and only too intelligible reference to the college experiences to which I have alluded. The youth for the moment thought that he had encountered her whom he was seeking, but, instead of the Florimel, he found her venal, hideous, and fatal simulacrum; and he indicates ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., February, 1863, No. LXIV. • Various

... General D'Hubert felt capable of mounting a horse and pursuing his late adversary in order simply to embrace him from excess of happiness. "I owe this piece of luck to that stupid brute," he thought. "This duel has made plain in one morning what might have taken me years to find out—for I am a timid fool. No self-confidence whatever. Perfect coward. And the Chevalier! Dear old man!" General D'Hubert longed ...
— The Point Of Honor - A Military Tale • Joseph Conrad

... opened and the butler reentered the room. Behind him came Cassidy and two other detectives in plain clothes. At a word from his master, the disturbed Thomas withdrew with the intention of obeying the Inspector's directions that he should retire to bed and stay there, carefully avoiding whatever possibilities of ...
— Within the Law - From the Play of Bayard Veiller • Marvin Dana

... tax on travel and merchandise in their transit constitutes one of the worst forms of monopoly, and the evil is increased if coupled with a denial of the choice of route. When the vast extent of our country is considered, it is plain that every obstacle to the free circulation of commerce between the States ought to be sternly guarded against by appropriate legislation within the ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Andrew Johnson • Andrew Johnson

... some transient mention of their philosophers, but as for good historians among them, I don't know of any; and, indeed, a Frenchman was forced to write their history. Possibly the English genius, which is either languid or impetuous, has not yet acquired that unaffected eloquence, that plain but majestic air which history requires. Possibly too, the spirit of party which exhibits objects in a dim and confused light may have sunk the credit of their historians. One half of the nation is always at variance with the other half. I have met with people who assured me that the Duke ...
— Letters on England • Voltaire

... Manassas, Mr. Mullen,' I said as pleasant an' natchel as if I warn't about to confound him, 'an' what I'd like to have made clear an' easy to me, suh, is what use the Almighty is goin' to make of that odd leg on the Day of Jedgment? Will he add a new one onto Reuben,' I axed, 'when, as plain as logic will have it, it won't be a resurrection, but a creation, or will he start that leg a-trampin' by itself all the way from Manassas to jine the other at Old Church?' The parson had been holdin' pretty free all the mornin' with nobody daring ...
— The Miller Of Old Church • Ellen Glasgow

... whether she too was hoping for a plate of hot broth as soon as the sunbeam had gone a certain distance—broth being the Sunday fare with the Bruces—and, I presume, with most families in Scotland. The countenance was very plain, seamed and scarred as if the woman had fallen into the fire when a child; and Annie had not looked at her two seconds, before she saw that she was perfectly blind. Indeed she thought at first that she ...
— Alec Forbes of Howglen • George MacDonald

... I may speak: you fool, for all Your lore! Who made things plain in vain? What was the sea for? What, the grey Sad church, that solitary day, Crosses and graves ...
— The Poetry Of Robert Browning • Stopford A. Brooke

... not put any faith in Gussie's stories, Mr. McNeil," Dexie managed to reply. "I am aware she is resting under a delusion, but I did not take the trouble to convince her of the fact. I was hoping I should not have to tell you what is surely plain to yourself," blushing as she gave a meaning glance ...
— Miss Dexie - A Romance of the Provinces • Stanford Eveleth

... my good hollow ship, in the wake of the goodly-greaved Achaeans. Now oft as we took counsel around Troy town, he was ever the first to speak, and no word missed the mark; the godlike Nestor and I alone surpassed him. But whensoever we Achaeans did battle on the plain of Troy, he never tarried behind in the throng or the press of men, but ran out far before us all, yielding to none in that might of his. And many men he slew in warfare dread; but I could not tell ...
— DONE INTO ENGLISH PROSE • S. H. BUTCHER, M.A.

... to read Chapters II. and III., you will have a dull and rather abstruse chapter, and a plain and interesting ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume I • Francis Darwin

... I'm a plain man who speak the truth. And trust you'll think me not uncivil When I declare that from my youth I've wished your country at the devil. Nor can I doubt indeed from all I've heard of your high patriot fame, From every word your ...
— Irish Books and Irish People • Stephen Gwynn

... voodoo worship, loosely organized into a secret guerilla army. They number at least 100,000 men, probably more. About one-half of the force is armed with modern rifles. The headquarters of the Cacos is in the mountain country in the center of the island, above the Plain of Cul-de-Sac, where no white influence reaches. No one who knew Haitian conditions doubted that revenge would be sought for Charlemagne's death, and all through the winter of 1919-1920, the Marines were ...
— Plotting in Pirate Seas • Francis Rolt-Wheeler

... Church were preached in the name of Christianity, the fixing of tradition necessarily became the supreme task. Here, as in every other case, the tradition was not fixed till after it had been to some extent departed from. It was just the Gnostics themselves who took the lead in a fixing process, a plain proof that the setting up of dogmatic formulae has always been the support of new formations. But the example set by the Gnostics was the very thing that rendered the problem difficult. Where was a beginning to ...
— History of Dogma, Volume 2 (of 7) • Adolph Harnack

... against the cliff and looked stubbornly into vacancy. From his attitude it was plain that he ...
— The Adventure League • Hilda T. Skae

... on a wooded height. Tall trees surrounded it with dark greenery; and the vast park extended its vistas here over a deep forest and there over an open plain. Some little distance from the front of the mansion stood a huge stone basin in which marble nymphs were bathing. Other basins arranged in order succeeded each other down as far as the foot of the slope, and a hidden fountain sent ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume VIII. • Guy de Maupassant

... zeal and the neophyte's ardour. But these Manuals are not written for the eager student, whom no initial difficulties can daunt; they are written for the busy men and women of the work-a-day world, and seek to make plain some of the great truths that render life easier to bear and death easier to face. Written by servants of the Masters who are the Elder Brothers of our race, they can have no other object ...
— The Astral Plane - Its Scenery, Inhabitants and Phenomena • C. W. Leadbeater

... length "Mrs. Boehm's Grand Masquerade." "On Monday evening this distinguished lady of the haut ton gave a splendid masquerade at her residence in St. James's Square." "The Dukes of Gloucester, Wellington, etc., were present in plain dress. Among the dominoes were the Duke and Duchess of Grafton, etc." Lady Caroline ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 4 • Lord Byron

... jay screamed in the clump of trees at the hill-top; it seemed the proper kind of voice for a waste like that. Still further on, I sat down to rest at the brink of the great descent, which led, as I guessed, as I could almost see, to the plain where Taunton lay, waiting for the Duke's army to garrison her. There were thick woods to my right at this point, making cover so dense that no hounds would have tried to break through it, no matter how strong a scent might lead them. It was here, as I sat for a few minutes to rest, that a strange ...
— Martin Hyde, The Duke's Messenger • John Masefield

... Bolshevik rulers that American troops were withdrawing from Archangel. We had been faithful (sic) to the lectures, for a purpose of dissimulation, and the Red fanatics really thought we were converted to the silly stuff called bolshevism. It was plain to us also that they were playing for recognition of their government by the United States. So we were given passports for Finland. The propaganda did not ...
— The History of the American Expedition Fighting the Bolsheviki - Campaigning in North Russia 1918-1919 • Joel R. Moore

... continued: "I thought, perhaps, you were offended at my plain letter concerning that girl, and resented it by not coming, but of course you are glad now, and see that mother was right. What could you have done ...
— Bad Hugh • Mary Jane Holmes

... looked like plain Hell to Madeleine, or worse. The Hell of the Bible and Dante had a lively accompaniment of writhing flames and was presumably clean. This might be an underground race condemned to a sordid filthy and living death for unimaginable ...
— Sleeping Fires • Gertrude Atherton

... of the same species stood out upon the plain at long distances apart; and though they were all taller than the surrounding timber, none were so large or conspicuous as the one ...
— Popular Adventure Tales • Mayne Reid

... been forwarded by a motor dispatch rider to G.H.Q. and could not be recalled by any possibility. The C.O., who seems to have begun to realize the horrible position of Binny, asked advice as to what he ought to do. The staff colonel said he'd never come across a case of the kind before, but it seemed plain to him that Binny was dead, that is to say, officially dead. The Chaplain's Department, he thought, might be able to do something for a man after he was dead. ...
— Our Casualty And Other Stories - 1918 • James Owen Hannay, AKA George A. Birmingham

... millions of our boys from every walk of life. It sent two and a quarter millions across the sea. It fed them an abundance of plain but wholesome food. It gave them plenty of hard exercise to convert that food into hard muscle. It demanded attention, so that a keen mind directed a strong body. It provided the leisure hour with huts where the touch of home suggested the ...
— The Fight for the Argonne - Personal Experiences of a 'Y' Man • William Benjamin West

... cocoanut into a fruit dish, and mix it thoroughly and lightly with pulverised sugar. Serve with whipped or plain sweet cream. ...
— The International Jewish Cook Book • Florence Kreisler Greenbaum

... It was last night, and what with that and my cough, I didn't get a wink of sleep after it. About three o'clock this morning I made up my mind to go to London at once and see Mr. Bowles. If it's true that he's been robbed and ruined by Charles, I've only one thing to do—my duty's plain enough. I shall ask him how much money Charles has had of him, and, if my means are equal to it, I shall pay every penny ...
— The House of Cobwebs and Other Stories • George Gissing

... needn't talk like a lawyer to me, Josiah Allen, but tell me plain as a man and a ...
— Samantha at the St. Louis Exposition • Marietta Holley

... little Swedish steamers is generally plain, sociable, and intelligent. Among the passengers I met many who spoke English and German, and few who did not speak at least one language in addition to their own. In midsummer the trip from Stockholm to Gottenburg usually takes three days, though it is sometimes accomplished in two. The distance ...
— The Land of Thor • J. Ross Browne

... in you, from our college-days: I know that on the score of the things touched upon in the last paragraphs of my letter you will not press me with inquiries. It is enough for you to know that my life has not been all 'plain-sailing.' For the present, let us ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 91, May, 1865 • Various

... brought his head to Nadir; and as the battle still raged, he directed it to be fixed upon a spear and to be displayed where it would be best seen by the enemy. The effect was as he anticipated. The Turks, perceiving their general was slain, fled in every direction and left the plain covered with their dead. This victory was followed by the submission of the cities of Gunjah and Tiflis; and those of Kars and Erivan, with all the former possessions of the Persians in that quarter, were soon afterward ceded to ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, v. 13 • Various

... were at the windlass, easing out the cable as the vessel rose on the tide. Corliss was at the wheel, tugging and turning,—to what purpose was not very evident. But they were doing their level best to save the vessel: that was plain. Capt. Mazard stood with clinched hands watching them, every muscle ...
— Left on Labrador - or, The cruise of the Schooner-yacht 'Curlew.' as Recorded by 'Wash.' • Charles Asbury Stephens

... prince is guarded by wise and honest men, and when all public officers are sure to be rewarded if they do well, and punished if they do evil, the consequence is plain; justice and honesty will flourish, and men will be always contriving, not for themselves, but for the honour and interest of their king ...
— Dickory Cronke - The Dumb Philosopher, or, Great Britain's Wonder • Daniel Defoe

... plain to every one that children do not require such powerful medicine as adults or old people, and therefore it is desirable to have some fixed method of determining or regulating the administration of doses of medicine. ...
— Enquire Within Upon Everything - The Great Victorian Domestic Standby • Anonymous

... happens if they believe the promise of Christ, that for His sake we have remission of sins. This faith, encouraging and consoling in these fears, receives remission of sins, justifies and quickens. For this consolation is a new and spiritual life [a new birth and a new life]. These things are plain and clear, and can be understood by the pious, and have testimonies of the Church [as is to be seen in the conversion of Paul and Augustine]. The adversaries nowhere can say how the Holy Ghost is given. They imagine that the ...
— The Apology of the Augsburg Confession • Philip Melanchthon

... legislative restrictions upon the general use of the emblem and name, I can hardly think the Bill now before Parliament to be well adapted for its purpose. The "Memorandum" prefixed to it ought surely to have stated, in plain language, the effect of the articles in question and the reasons which prevented them from being ratified together with the rest of the Convention. Instead of this, only one of those articles is cited, and few members of Parliament will be aware that an omitted paragraph of that ...
— Letters To "The Times" Upon War And Neutrality (1881-1920) • Thomas Erskine Holland

... moved up the aisle; while before them, led by the sword and gilded mace, came a little homely man, who seemed burdened by his glittering chain, and most uncomfortable. As I knew, he commenced his business career with ten pounds' capital, and could hardly speak plain English, while now his goods were known in every bazaar from Cairo to Singapore. This knowledge fostered a vague ...
— Lorimer of the Northwest • Harold Bindloss

... brow, and the same bitter emphasis on the one word. 'Is it not so? Have I been made the bye-word of all kinds of men? Have fools, have profligates, have boys, have dotards, dangled after me, and one by one rejected me, and fallen off, because you were too plain with all your cunning: yes, and too true, with all those false pretences: until we have almost come to be notorious? The licence of look and touch,' she said, with flashing eyes, 'have I submitted to it, in half the places of resort upon the map of England? Have I been hawked ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens

... of a house died? How he was dressed in his finest dress, and set in his chariot, and carried about to his friends' houses; and each of them placed him at his table's head, and all feasted in his presence? Suppose it were offered to you, in plain words, as it is offered to you in dire facts, that you should gain this Scythian honour gradually, while you yet thought yourself alive.... Would you take the offer verbally made by the death-angel? Would the meanest among us take it, think you? ...
— Seekers after God • Frederic William Farrar

... day, and yet no man among them would have known that he was travelling two miles a day backward unless he had lifted his eyes from the track in which he was plodding. It is not only going backward that the plain practical workman is liable to, if he will not look up and look around; he may go forward to ends he little dreams of. It is a simple business for a mason to build up a niche in a wall; but what if, a hundred years afterwards when the wall is torn down, the skeleton of a murdered ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)

... of the steeps. The fire-fly anon from his covert shall glide, And dark fall the shadows of eve on the tide. Tread softly—my spirit is joyous no more. A northern aurora, it shone and is o'er; The tears will fall fast as I gather the rein, And a long look reverts to yon shadowy plain." ...
— Personal Recollections • Charlotte Elizabeth

... last degree, with his mind on a pistol, it must be confessed that he went up with a light step; albeit, in a mighty obfuscation, as Dr. Johnson might have put it. A kinder smile, more honest eyes he swore he had never seen, even in a plain face. Her very blushes, of which the memory set his blase blood dancing to a faster time, were a character in themselves. But—he wondered. She had made such advances, been so friendly, dropped such hints—he ...
— The Castle Inn • Stanley John Weyman

... was held in a vast plain. Twelve pavilions were raised to receive the Polish nobility and the ambassadors. One of a circular form was supported by a single mast, and was large enough to contain 6000 persons, without any one approaching the mast nearer than by twenty steps, leaving this space void to ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli

... breaking that Sunday morning when I rode through Bouillonville. Leading north from this village the road leaves the shelter of a friendly hill and plunges boldly across the open plain. Our Batteries were firing constantly from every available angle of the hills, and the enemy's spirited reply made very heavy the din of gun fire. In all directions, on roadside, field and hill, geysers were rising, ...
— The Greater Love • George T. McCarthy

... air of boldness with which they veil their real shyness and timidity; the strong and saucy sparrows, powerful by the strength of all mediocrities and majorities; all the dainty families of finches in their gay apparellings; the plain brown bird that filled the night with music; the gorgeous oriole ruffling in gold, the gilded princeling of them all; the little blue warblers, the violets of the air; the kingfishers who had hovered so long over the forget-me-nots upon the rivers that they had caught the colours of the ...
— Wisdom, Wit, and Pathos of Ouida - Selected from the Works of Ouida • Ouida

... "Well, you force plain speaking. While I command the Kansas I am responsible for the well-being of the ship, her crew, and her passengers. I could never forgive myself if I left those men to the mercy of the Indians. I cannot permit either ...
— The Captain of the Kansas • Louis Tracy

... ever after had an opportunity of appreciating. Every man on that night seemed to be inspired by the subject. Speeches more replete with talent and energy, on both sides, never were heard in the Irish Senate; it was a vital subject. The sublime, the eloquent, the figurative orator, the plain, the connected, the metaphysical reasoner, the classical, the learned, and the solemn declaimer, in a succession of speeches so full of energy and enthusiasm, so interesting in their nature, so important in their consequence, created a ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee

... (our Hampshire quarters); where the obstinate people,—with whom you are otherwise, in prose, a first favorite,—foolishly refused to let me read aloud; foolishly, for I would have made it mostly all plain by commentary:—so I had to read for myself; and can say, in spite of my hard-heartedness, I did gain, though under impediments, a real satisfaction and some tone of the Eternal Melodies sounding, afar off, ever and anon, in my ear! This is fact; a truth in Natural History; from which you are welcome ...
— The Correspondence of Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1834-1872, Vol II. • Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson

... case—however we may change our point of view, however plain we may make to ourselves the connection between the man and the external world, however inaccessible it may be to us, however long or short the period of time, however intelligible or incomprehensible the causes of the action may ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy

... purpose to disappoint us, both the effect, and the conception of the figures, are perfectly quiet, and appear the result much more of careful study than of vigorous imagination. The effect is one of plain daylight; there are a few clouds drifting in the distance, but with no wildness in them, nor is there any energy or heat in the flames which mantle about the waist of one of the figures. But for the noble workmanship, we might almost fancy ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume III (of 3) • John Ruskin

... prayers were over and the solemn gathering seated at the breakfast table that Mr. Spence burst upon it like an aurora. His flannel suit was of the lightest of grays; he wore white tennis shoes and a red tie, and it was plain, as he cheerfully bade them good morning, that he was wholly unaware of the enormity of his costume. There was a choking, breathless moment before ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... personal interests and become Man thinking for the whole race. And intimations of the same thing have been at the heart of most religions. But now people are beginning to get this detachment without any distinctively religious feeling or any distinctive aesthetic or intellectual impulse, as if it were a plain matter of fact. Plain matter of fact, that we are only incidentally ourselves. That really each one of us is also the whole species, is really ...
— The Secret Places of the Heart • H. G. Wells

... differ on the question of baptism, we cannot take the first step in preaching the gospel and in leading souls to Christ, in the New Testament way, without getting into conflict. The only way that union meetings of different denominations have been at all possible, has been by ignoring the plain teaching and practice of the Apostles on the question of baptism. We never can have Christian union in the authority of Christ, which is the only union which will satisfy his prayer and demand, until we agree on the two simple ordinances which are the ...
— To Infidelity and Back • Henry F. Lutz

... proof was plain that since the day On which the Traveller thus had died The Dog had watch'd about the spot, 60 Or by his Master's side: How nourish'd here through such long time He knows, who gave that love sublime, And gave that strength of feeling, great Above ...
— Poems In Two Volumes, Vol. 1 • William Wordsworth

... things, however sinister they may be, cannot but chasten and moralise us. The personal character that such a function would involve, if it were exercised willingly by a responsible being, is something that never enters our thoughts. No such painful image comes to perplex the plain sense of instinctive, poetic religion. To give moral importance to myths, as Plato tended to do, is to take them far too seriously and to belittle what they stand for. Left to themselves they float in ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana

... after a while I turned from the crowded roofs and looked down upon the gray, far-spreading plain of the Wolfmark, to the east I saw that which appeared like winking sparks of light moving among the black clumps of copse and woodland which fringed the river. These wimpled and scattered, and presently grew brighter. A long howl, ...
— Red Axe • Samuel Rutherford Crockett

... of the gray squirrel, indicating no haste or speed, but, on the contrary, denoting the most imperturbable ease and leisure, the footprints so close together that the trail appears like a chain of curiously carved links. Sir Mephitis mephitica, or, in plain English, the skunk, has awakened from his six weeks' nap, and come out into society again. He is a nocturnal traveler, very bold and impudent, coming quite up to the barn and outbuildings, and sometimes ...
— Winter Sunshine • John Burroughs

... struck, sparkled magnificently, and a terrific cascade of white-hot metal rolled down from its nose. The great ship nosed down and to the left abruptly, accelerated swiftly—and crashed with tremendous energy on the plain outside of Mars Center City. White, unwavering flames licked up suddenly, and made a column five hundred feet high against the dark sky. Then the wreck exploded with a violence that left a ...
— The Ultimate Weapon • John Wood Campbell

... treasury, together with that which they had brought with them, and performed an expiatory sacred rite. The praetor then, summoning the soldiers to an assembly, ordered them to march out of the city, and pitched a camp in the plain, issuing an edict which threatened severe punishment to any soldier who either had remained behind in the city, or had carried out with him what did not belong to him. He gave permission to the ...
— History of Rome, Vol III • Titus Livius

... and never, perhaps, did England feel such a sense of relief as on the auspicious day which welcomed to the throne the great Elizabeth, an Englishwoman in every fibre, and whose mother withal was the daughter of a plain country gentleman. But the Marian persecution not only increased the strength of the extreme Protestant sentiment, but indirectly it supplied it with that Calvinistic theology which was to make it indomitable. Of the hundreds of ...
— The Beginnings of New England - Or the Puritan Theocracy in its Relations to Civil and Religious Liberty • John Fiske

... I found the adjacent plain covered with cattle quietly grazing. Any attempt to pass through the herd would have been almost certain death, as these more than half-wild beasts will always take revenge on their master man when they ...
— The Purple Land • W. H. Hudson

... they discovered some thirty or forty windmills that are in that plain; and as soon as the knight had spied them, "Fortune," cried he, "directs our affairs better than we ourselves could have wished: look yonder, friend Sancho, there are at least thirty outrageous giants, whom I intend to encounter; and having deprived them of life, we will begin to enrich ourselves ...
— The Ontario Readers - Third Book • Ontario Ministry of Education

... poor that all we could obtain from them were two lean dogs and a few large cakes of half-cured bread, made of a root resembling the sweet potato, of all which we contrived to form a kind of soup. The soil of the plain is good, but it has no timber. The range of southwest mountains is about fifteen miles above us, but continues to lower, and is still covered with snow to its base. After giving passage to Lewis' (Snake) River, near their northeastern extremity, they terminate in a high level ...
— First Across the Continent • Noah Brooks

... is a spring in China which makes every man that drinks it a villain. Eastern tales are founded on some plain matter of fact. This spring may be some distillery or dram-shop; for this is the natural effect of alcohol. It breaks down the conscience, quickens the circulation, increases the courage, makes man flout at law and right, and hurries him to the perpetration of every abomination and crime. Excite ...
— Select Temperance Tracts • American Tract Society

... care, forethought, and responsibility, during their trips to the South and West—or wherever Home Rulers most do congregate. Strange it is, but perfectly true, that in most cases an Irishman's politics may be determined by outward and visible signs, so plain that he who runs may read. In Dundalk, which should be a thriving port, you see in and around the town long rows of low thatch-covered cabins, with putrid dunghills "convaynient," dirty, half-fed, barefooted children, and—magnificent Catholic ...
— Ireland as It Is - And as It Would be Under Home Rule • Robert John Buckley (AKA R.J.B.)

... smiled; "there might be greater depths for one of your training and character. I'm just telling you the plain truth about the haste with which you're rushing into this marriage. There's nothing divine in it. There's no true romance of lofty sentiment. It's the simplest and most elemental of all the brutal facts of animal life. That it is resistless in a woman of your culture ...
— The Foolish Virgin • Thomas Dixon

... It was plain that she understood him, for the blood rushed into her face and he saw that she felt some confusion. This seemed to indicate that she ...
— Carmen's Messenger • Harold Bindloss

... when she arrived at her destination, my friend took with her some strong barley water, bananas, and an enema syringe. She found the girl lying across the bed screaming, obviously in agony. First of all my friend administered a warm water enema. A pint of plain warm water was injected first, and after this had come away as much warm water as could be got in was injected and then allowed to come away. The object of this was to thoroughly wash out the bowels. Then the barley water was warmed, the bananas mashed, beaten ...
— Food Remedies - Facts About Foods And Their Medicinal Uses • Florence Daniel

... secular princes should imprison them. But the futility of these measures appeared from the colloquy held in 1165 at Lombers, near Albi, between representatives of the Church and of the Albigenses before mutually chosen judges, for it made plain the boldness of the heretics and their claim of equality with the Church. Indeed, in 1167 they actually held a council of their own at St. Felix de Caraman, near Toulouse, at which the chief Bishop of the Catharists ...
— The Church and the Empire - Being an Outline of the History of the Church - from A.D. 1003 to A.D. 1304 • D. J. Medley

... "It is perfectly plain what you mean, Zaidie," said Mrs. Van Stuyler, in a tone which seemed to send a chill through the ...
— A Honeymoon in Space • George Griffith

... reason to remember Bligh with no friendly feeling. There are other books, some of them as dull as they are pious and inaccurate, others containing no quality of accuracy or piety, and only dull; and there is Bligh's own narrative of the affair, remarkable for its plain account of the mutiny and the writer's boat voyage and the absence of a single word that could throw a shadow of blame upon the memory of Captain Bligh. Byron's poem of "The Island" is, of course, founded on the Bounty mutiny, ...
— The Naval Pioneers of Australia • Louis Becke and Walter Jeffery

... fallen in this region recently, as he came to extensive flooded areas. It annoyed him, too, that the soft ground compelled him to leave so plain a trail, as often for considerable stretches he sank over his moccasins at every step. He walked on fallen timber whenever he could find it, making a break now and then in his trail, but he knew it would ...
— The Eyes of the Woods - A story of the Ancient Wilderness • Joseph A. Altsheler

... a plain common-sense answer as that. The fact, that he had to leave his parents, three brothers, and five sisters, all ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still

... plain that the long Confederate lines, frayed on each flank, had crowded together making a vast wedge of attack. Then all along our miles of troops a crackle of musketry broke out, the big guns bellowing. The field was mostly lost to view in the dense smoke, under which ...
— Westways • S. Weir Mitchell

... not so fond of plain language," she exclaimed irritably. "Please remember they have not yet ...
— The Lost Despatch • Natalie Sumner Lincoln

... "I was about the first student who wore his hair without powder. 'Take care,' said my tutor. 'They will stone you for a republican.' The Whigs (not the wigs) were then unpopular; but I stuck to my plain hair and queue ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 102, April, 1866 • Various

... Ardan, "a plain is easier to disembark upon than a mountain. A Selenite, deposited in Europe on the summit of Mont Blanc, or in Asia on the top of the Himalayas, would not be quite ...
— Jules Verne's Classic Books • Jules Verne

... that, whether it succumbed at once or not, it would never recover. In this too, with the help of Napoleon III, he succeeded. The third point was to prevent the Continental Powers from forcibly impeding Italian Unity when it became plain that the population desired to be united. This Cavour succeeded in doing with the help ...
— Cavour • Countess Evelyn Martinengo-Cesaresco

... suppose that it was all plain sailing after the colonies had declared their independence, and their armies were marshalled under the greatest man—certainly the wisest and best—in the history of America and of the eighteenth century. But the difficulties were appalling even to the stoutest ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XI • John Lord

... honey, in them times folks couldn't git so much as some plain salt to use on their victuals. The white folks had the dirt dug up from out'n their smokehouses an' hauled it up to Mr. Sisson's an' he run it an' got what salt he could out'n it. I 'members one day I went over there fer sumpthin' an' the dirt what he had run wuz piled way ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - Volume II. Arkansas Narratives. Part I • Work Projects Administration

... dress. She was at once too indolent and too sensible; she saw the vulgarity of finery, and only aimed at simplicity and elegance. During their girlhood Emily and Lilias had had no more concern with their clothes than with their food; Eleanor had carefully taught them plain needlework, and they had assisted in making more than one set of shirts; but they had nothing to do with the choice or fashion of their own apparel. They were always dressed alike, and in as plain and childish a manner as they could be, consistently with their ...
— Scenes and Characters • Charlotte M. Yonge

... It seemed plain to me that the change had been too violent for this elderly scholar, taken from his books and college rooms and set down in the solitude of this remote valley, amid the richness and living sap of Nature. ...
— Trivia • Logan Pearsall Smith

... The parallel is now plain to the reader: the corpuscle is the Yogi, bent on liberation: the heat which warms him is the Divine Love, centered in his heart, his initiations are the successive emancipations into higher and higher ...
— Four-Dimensional Vistas • Claude Fayette Bragdon

... for some time. I thought I had made it plain to you that I am not interested about the subject, we need not mention it again, you have only to talk to old Robert Nelson, my lawyer, when he comes on Monday. He will tell you the settlements ...
— Man and Maid • Elinor Glyn

... as well in the plain Presbit household as she would have done in the home of the ambitious Caroline. The tasks early put upon her, instead of hardening and imbittering her, had made her self-reliant, helpful, and strong, with a grace ...
— The Young Surveyor; - or Jack on the Prairies • J. T. Trowbridge

... and astonishing colouring, Meg was right in her consciousness that for women there was more magnetic attraction in Mike's mobile plainness, in his sensitive, irregular features. When the two men were talking together, the senses and eyes of women would be drawn to the plain man. ...
— There was a King in Egypt • Norma Lorimer

... to life, He said, is plain and straight, It leads to joy, and peace, and heavenly light The way to death is through a golden gate And broad the way that leads to ...
— The World As I Have Found It - Sequel to Incidents in the Life of a Blind Girl • Mary L. Day Arms

... only silent rebuke, even resentment, in Dick's countenance when she stole glances at the hard profile above the old man's knitted scarf. It was plain that he did not relish his job. She wondered whether he believed that her errand was useless. When, after a time, she tried to draw some opinion out of him he gave her no replies ...
— Joan of Arc of the North Woods • Holman Day

... the street, but was separated from other buildings at the back of a court, retired from noise and bustle. The two rooms intended for the occupation of the children were neat and clean, but perfectly simple, with whitewashed walls, furnished only with wooden stools and benches, and plain deal tables. The kitchen was well lighted (for light is essential to cleanliness), and it was provided with utensils; and for these appropriate places were allotted, to give the habit and the taste of order. The school-room opened into a garden larger ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. 6 • Maria Edgeworth

... thirty-shilling piece of crockery, no insignificant glass bottle, or fantastic paper-knife of no real value whatever, but got up just to put money into the tradesmen's hands. To one or two elderly gentlemen upon whom Mrs. Carbuncle had smiled, she ventured to suggest in plain words that a cheque was the most convenient cadeau. "What do you say to a couple of sovereigns?" one sarcastic old gentleman replied, upon whom probably Mrs. Carbuncle had not smiled enough. She laughed and congratulated her sarcastic friend upon his joke;—but the two sovereigns were left upon ...
— The Eustace Diamonds • Anthony Trollope



Words linked to "Plain" :   plainly, whine, unembellished, bleat, holler, bewail, hen-peck, unmistakable, terra firma, homely, Olympia, unmixed, literal, unadorned, deplore, chaste, Serengeti, bellyache, manifestly, murmur, unelaborate, trim, obvious, patently, complain, mere, unattractive, unrhetorical, evidently, plain weave, patterned, earth, plain sailing, colloquialism, moorland, nag, simple, bitch, fancy, lament, scold, protest, knitting stitch, plain flour, apparent, plain stitch, peneplane, evident, austere, bemoan, floodplain, grouse, alluvial plain, flat, unpatterned, gripe, tailored, salt plain, stark, knit, flood plain, featureless, repine, peneplain, grizzle, yawp, obviously, plain turkey, champaign, undecorated, dry, severe



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