plainly

English

Etymology

From Middle English playnly, pleinly, pleyneliche, equivalent to plain +‎ -ly.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈpleɪnli/

• Audio (US):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -eɪnli

Adverb

plainly (comparative plainlier or more plainly, superlative plainliest or most plainly)

1. In a plain manner; simply; basically.

   She decorated the room plainly but neatly.

   • 1956 [1880], Johanna Spyri, Heidi, translation of original by Eileen Hall, page 95:

     'Tell me plainly what you think of my daughter's little companion.'

2. Obviously; clearly.

   You will see that ours is plainly the better method.

   • 1897 December (indicated as 1898), Winston Churchill, chapter I, in The 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 were plainly 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, published 1965, page 3:

     Plainly he was prepared to bark out an interminable succession of charges against the Wanderer.

Synonyms

• (obviously, clearly): expressly, unambiguously; see also Thesaurus:explicitly or Thesaurus:obviously

Translations

In a plain manner

• Finnish: yksinkertaisesti (fi)
• French: simplement (fr)
• Hungarian: egyszerűen (hu)

Obviously; clearly

• Finnish: selvästi (fi), ilmiselvästi
• French: clairement (fr)
• Hungarian: egyértelműen (hu), világosan (hu), nyilvánvalóan (hu)
• Italian: a chiare note