FromMiddle Englishplaynly,pleinly,pleyneliche, equivalent toplain +-ly.
plainly (comparativeplainlierormoreplainly,superlativeplainliestormostplainly)
- In aplain manner;simply;basically.
She decorated the roomplainly but neatly.
1956 [1880],Johanna Spyri,Heidi, translation of original by Eileen Hall, page95:'Tell meplainly what you think of my daughter's little companion.'
- Obviously;clearly.
You will see that ours isplainly the better method.
1897 December (indicated as1898),Winston Churchill, chapter I, inThe Celebrity: An Episode, New York, N.Y.:The Macmillan Company; London:Macmillan & Co., Ltd.,→OCLC:The stories did not seem to me to touch life. They wereplainly intended to have a bracing moral effect, and perhaps had this result for the people at whom they were aimed. They left me with the impression of a well-delivered stereopticon lecture, with characters about as life-like as the shadows on the screen, and whisking on and off, at the mercy of the operator.
1932,Delos W. Lovelace,King Kong, published1965, page 3:Plainly he was prepared to bark out an interminable succession of charges against the Wanderer.
