plainness

1. 1.

   the state of being unmixed with other material

   “the plainness of vanilla ice cream”

   Broaderpurity
2. 2.

   clarity as a consequence of being perspicuous

   Synonymsperspicuityperspicuousness

   Broaderclarity
3. 3.

   the appearance of being plain and unpretentious

   Broaderappearance

   Narrowerchastenessausterenessbareness
4. 4.

   an appearance that is not attractive or beautiful

   “fine clothes could not conceal the girl's homeliness”

   Synonymshomeliness

   Broaderappearance

Other forms of plainness

plural

plainnesses·

Forms marked · are formed by the regular rule rather than recorded in the source data. English keeps a few hundred irregulars and the rest follow the pattern, so the rule is right far more often than not — but it is a rule, and the mark says so.

Questions about plainness

What does plainness mean?

plainness means "the state of being unmixed with other material". That is the primary sense; the word has 4 in total, listed in full on this page.

How many syllables are in plainness?

plainness has 2 syllables: plain-ness. The stress falls on "plain".

What is another word for plainness?

Close synonyms include perspicuity, perspicuousness, homeliness. Each sense on this page lists its own synonyms, because a word with several meanings rarely has one substitute that works for all of them.

Is plainness a common word?

plainness is banded "Rare" — specialist or archaic — most readers will not have met it. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.