The ability of a segment of a glass sphere to magnify whatever is placed before it was known around the year 1000, when the spherical segment was called a reading stone, essentially what today we might term a frameless magnifying glass orplain glass paperweight.
In fact, by excommunication or persuasion, by impetuosity of driving or adroitness in leading,this Abbot, it is now becomingplain everywhere, is a man that generally remains master at last.
1577, Socrates Scholasticus [i.e.,Socrates of Constantinople], “Constantinus the Emperour Summoneth the Nicene Councell, it was Held at Nicæa a Citie of Bythnia for the Debatinge of the Controuersie about the Feast of Easter, and the Rootinge out of the Heresie of Arius”, inEusebius Pamphilus, Socrates Scholasticus,Evagrius Scholasticus,Dorotheus, translated byMeredith Hanmer,The Avncient Ecclesiasticall Histories of the First Six Hundred Yeares after Christ, Wrytten in the Greeke Tongue by Three Learned Historiographers, Eusebius, Socrates, and Euagrius.[...], book I (The First Booke of the Ecclesiasticall Historye of Socrates Scholasticvs), imprinted at London: ByThomas Vautroullier dwelling in theBlackefriers byLudgate,→OCLC,page225:
[VV]e are able withplayne demonſtration to proue, and vvith reaſon to perſvvade that in tymes paſt our fayth vvas alike, that then vve preached thinges correſpondent vnto the forme of faith already published of vs, ſo that none in this behalfe can repyne or gaynesay vs.
The Quaker was no sooner assured by this fellow of the birth and low fortune of Jones, than all compassion for him vanished; and the honestplain man went home fired with no less indignation than a duke would have felt at receiving an affront from such a person.
Clear; unencumbered; equal; fair.
1711,Henry Felton,Dissertation on Reading the Classics:
Our troops beat an army inplain fight.
Not unusually beautiful;unattractive.[from 17th c.]
Throughout high school she worried that she had a ratherplain face.
1957 September 13,Walter Bernstein, “The Cherubs Are Rumbling”, inThe New Yorker[1], archived fromthe original on18 February 2024:
One trouble, he explained, is that dope pushers flock to neighborhoods where two gangs are at war, knowing they will find buyers among members of the gangs who are so keyed up that they welcome any kind of relaxation or who are justplain afraid.
1667,John Milton, “Book I”, inParadise Lost.[…], London:[…] [Samuel Simmons], and are to be sold by Peter Parker[…];[a]nd by Robert Boulter[…];[a]nd Matthias Walker,[…],→OCLC; republished asParadise Lost in Ten Books:[…], London: Basil Montagu Pickering[…],1873,→OCLC:
Him the Ammonite / Worshipped in Rabba and her wateryplain.
1961, J. A. Philip.Mimesis in theSophistês of Plato. In: Proceedings and Transactions of the American Philological Association 92. p. 467.
For Plato the life of the philosopher is a life of struggle towards the goal of knowledge, towards “searching the heavens and measuring theplains, in all places seeking the nature of everything as a whole”
Fair ship, that from the Italian shore, Sailest the placid ocean-plains With my lost Arthur’s loved remains, Spread thy full wings, and waft him o’er.
As withgrassland(s),flatland(s), etc.,plains can function as the plural ofplain (There are ten principal lowplains on Mars) or as its synonym (She lives on theplains), with a vague sense of greater expansiveness.
Though kept byRome’s andMahomet’s chiefe powers; They should not long detain him there in thrall: We would rakeEurope rather,plain theEast; Dispeople the wholeEarth before the doome:
Shepheards, that wont[…] Oft times toplaine your loves concealed smart
1597, [Joseph Hall], “(please specify the page)”, inVirgidemiarum, Sixe Bookes. First Three Bookes, of Tooth-lesse Satyrs.[…], London:[…]Thomas Creede, for Robert Dexter,→OCLC:
Thy mother could thee for thy cradle set Her husband's rusty iron corselet; Whose jargling sound might rock her babe to rest, That neverplain'd of his uneasy nest.
Then, again, she almost thought that the soft and wailing wind which swept mournfully through the sepulchral boughs of the large old yews, had a voice not of this world—was it the inarticulateplaining of her brother's gentle spirit, debarred from intercourse, but still keeping over her the deep and eternal watch of love?
