different between plain vs soft

English

Pronunciation

• enPR: pl?n, IPA^(key): /ple?n/, [p?l?e?n]
• Rhymes: -e?n
• Homophone: plane

Etymology 1

From Middle English pleyn, borrowed from Anglo-Norman pleyn, playn, Middle French plain, plein, and Old French plain, from Latin pl?nus (“flat, even, level, plain”).

Alternative forms

• plaine (obsolete)

Adjective

plain (comparative plainer, superlative plainest)

1. (now rare, regional) Flat, level. [from 14th c.]

   • The crooked shall be made straight, and the rough places plain.

2. Simple.
   1. Ordinary; lacking adornment or ornamentation; unembellished. [from 14th c.]
   2. Of just one colour; lacking a pattern.

   3. Simple in habits or qualities; unsophisticated, not exceptional, ordinary. [from 16th c.]
      • 1654, Henry Hammond, Of Fundamentals

        plain yet pious Christians

      • 1861, Abraham Lincoln, Message to Congress in Special Session, July 4th

        the plain people

   4. (of food) Having only few ingredients, or no additional ingredients or seasonings; not elaborate, without toppings or extras. [from 17th c.]

   5. (computing) Containing no extended or nonprinting characters (especially in plain text). [from 20th c.]
3. Obvious.
   1. Evident to one's senses or reason; manifest, clear, unmistakable. [from 14th c.]
      • 1843, Thomas Carlyle, Past and Present, book 2, ch. XV, Practical — Devotional

        In fact, by excommunication or persuasion, by impetuosity of driving or adroitness in leading, this Abbot, it is now becoming plain everywhere, is a man that generally remains master at last.

   2. Downright; total, unmistakable (as intensifier). [from 14th c.]

4. Open.
   1. Honest and without deception; candid, open; blunt. [from 14th c.]
      • 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 honest plain man went home fired with no less indignation than a duke would have felt at receiving an affront from such a person.

   2. Clear; unencumbered; equal; fair.
      • 1711, Henry Felton, Dissertation on Reading the Classics

        Our troops beat an army in plain fight.

5. Not unusually beautiful; unattractive. [from 17th c.]

6. (card games) Not a trump.

Synonyms

• (lacking adornment or ornamentation): no-frills, simple, unadorned, unseasoned; see also Thesaurus:bare-bones
• (of just one colour): monochrome
• (not exceptional): normal, ordinary
• (obvious): blatant, ostensible; see also Thesaurus:obvious or Thesaurus:explicit
• (intensifier): consarn, darned, stinking; see also Thesaurus:damned
• (honest and without deception): frank, sincere; see also Thesaurus:honest

Antonyms

• bells and whistles
• decorative
• exotic
• fancy
• ornate

Derived terms

Related terms

• plane
• planar

Translations

Adverb

plain (not comparable)

1. (colloquial) Simply.

   It was just plain stupid.

   I plain forgot.

2. (archaic) Plainly; distinctly.

   Tell me plain: do you love me or no?

Etymology 2

From Anglo-Norman plainer, pleiner, variant of Anglo-Norman and Old French pleindre, plaindre, from Latin plangere, present active infinitive of plang?.

Alternative forms

• plein

Noun

plain (plural plains)

1. (rare, poetic) A lamentation.
   • 1815, Sir Walter Scott, The Lady of the Isles, Canto IV, part IX

     The warrior-threat, the infant's plain,
     The mother's screams, were heard in vain;

Verb

plain (third-person singular simple present plains, present participle plaining, simple past and past participle plained)

1. (reflexive, obsolete) To complain. [13th–19th c.]
   • c. 1390, William Landland, Piers Plowman, Prologue:

     Persones and parisch prestes · pleyned hem to þe bischop / Þat here parisshes were pore · sith þe pestilence tyme […].

2. (transitive, intransitive, now rare, poetic) To lament, bewail. [from 14th c.]

   (Can we find and add a quotation of Sir J. Harrington to this entry?)

   • c. 1600, Joseph Hall, Satires

     Thy mother could thee for thy cradle set
     Her husband's rusty iron corselet;
     Whose jargling sound might rock her babe to rest,
     That never plain'd of his uneasy nest.

   • 1936, Alfred Edward Housman, More Poems, "XXV", lines 5–9

     Then came I crying, and to-day, / With heavier cause to plain, / Depart I into death away, / Not to be born again.

Related terms

Etymology 3

From Old French plain, from Latin pl?num (“level ground, a plain”), neuter substantive from pl?nus (“level, even, flat”). Doublet of llano, piano, and plane.

Noun

plain (plural plains)

1. An expanse of land with relatively low relief, usually exclusive of forests, deserts, and wastelands.
   • 1961, J. A. Philip. Mimesis in the Sophistês 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 the plains, in all places seeking the nature of everything as a whole”

   Synonyms: flatland, grassland

   Hypernyms: land, terrain

   Hyponyms: prairie, steppe

2. (archaic) Synonym of field in reference to a battlefield.

   (Can we find and add a quotation of Arbuthnot to this entry?)
3. (obsolete) Alternative spelling of plane: a flat geometric field.

Usage notes

• As with grassland(s), flatland(s), &c., plains can function as the plural of plain (There are ten principal low plains on Mars) or as its synonym (She lives in the plains), with a vague sense of greater expansiveness.

Derived terms

Related terms

Translations

Verb

plain (third-person singular simple present plains, present participle plaining, simple past and past participle plained)

1. (obsolete, transitive) To level; to raze; to make plain or even on the surface.
   • 1594, Christopher Marlowe, Edward II, London: William Jones,^[1]

     Frownst thou thereat aspiring Lancaster,
     The sworde shall plane the furrowes of thy browes,

   • 1612, George Wither, Prince Henrie’s Obsequies, Elegy 24, in Egerton Brydges (editor), Restituta, Volume I, London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme & Brown, 1814, p. 399,^[2]

     Though kept by Rome’s and Mahomet’s chiefe powers;
     They should not long detain him there in thrall:
     We would rake Europe rather, plain the East;
     Dispeople the whole Earth before the doome:

2. (obsolete, transitive) To make plain or manifest; to explain.
   • c. 1608, William Shakespeare, Pericles, Act III, Prologue,^[3]

     What’s dumb in show, I’ll plain with speech.

Anagrams

• Aplin, Lipan, Palin, Pinal, in lap, lapin, plani-

Dalmatian

Etymology

From Latin pl?nus. Compare Italian pieno, Romansch plain, Romanian plin, French plein.

Adjective

plain (feminine plaina)

1. full

French

Etymology

From Old French plain, from Latin pl?nus. Doublet of plan and piano.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /pl??/
• Homophones: plains, plein, pleins

Adjective

plain (feminine singular plaine, masculine plural plains, feminine plural plaines)

1. (obsolete) plane

Derived terms

• plain-pied
• plain-chant

Further reading

• “plain” in Trésor de la langue française informatisé (The Digitized Treasury of the French Language).

Anagrams

• alpin, lapin

Middle French

Etymology

From Old French plain, from Latin pl?nus.

Adjective

plain m (feminine singular plaine, masculine plural plains, feminine plural plaines)

1. full (not empty)

Old French

Etymology 1

From Latin pl?nus.

Adjective

plain m (feminine plaine)

1. full (not empty)
   • circa 1170, Chrétien de Troyes, Érec et Énide:

     De tant come ele l'ot veü,

     Que plains estoit de felenie.

     As she had seen

     He was full of evil

   Antonym: vuit

Descendants

• French: plein

Etymology 2

From Latin pl?num (“level ground, a plain”), neuter substantive from pl?nus (“level, even, flat”).

Noun

plain m (oblique plural plainz, nominative singular plainz, nominative plural plain)

1. plain (flat area)

Synonyms

• plaine

Descendants

• ? Dutch: plein
• ? Middle English:
  • English: plain
  • Scots: plain

Etymology 3

From Latin pl?nus (“level, even, flat”).

Adjective

plain m (oblique and nominative feminine singular plaine)

1. flat (not even or mountainous)

Romansch

Alternative forms

• plein (Sursilvan)
• plagn (Sutsilvan, Surmiran)

Etymology

From Latin pl?nus.

Adjective

plain m (feminine singular plaina, masculine plural plains, feminine plural plainas)

1. (Rumantsch Grischun, Puter, Vallader) full

English

Etymology

From Middle English softe, from Old English s?fte, alteration of earlier s?fte (“soft”), from Proto-West Germanic *samft? (“level, even, smooth, soft, gentle”) (compare *s?miz (“agreeable, fitting”)), from Proto-Indo-European *semptio-, *semtio-, from *sem- (“one, whole”). Cognate with West Frisian sêft (“gentle; soft”), Dutch zacht (“soft”), German Low German sacht (“soft”), German sanft (“soft, yielding”), Old Norse sœmr (“agreeable, fitting”), samr (“same”). More at seem, same.

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) enPR: s?ft, IPA^(key): /s?ft/
  • (Conservative RP) IPA^(key): /s??ft/
• (General American) enPR: sôft, IPA^(key): /s?ft/
• (cot–caught merger, Canada) IPA^(key): /s?ft/, enPR: s?ft
• Rhymes: -?ft

Adjective

soft (comparative softer, superlative softest)

1. Easily giving way under pressure.

2. (of cloth or similar material) Smooth and flexible; not rough, rugged, or harsh.
3. (of a sound) Quiet.
4. Gentle.

   There was a soft breeze blowing.

   • c. 1533, William Tyndale, An exposicion upon of Mathew

     The meek or soft shall inherit the earth.

5. Expressing gentleness or tenderness; mild; conciliatory; courteous; kind.
   • 1815, William Wordsworth, To a Highland Girl

     A face with gladness overspread, / Soft smiles, by human kindness bred.

6. Gentle in action or motion; easy.
7. Weak in character; impressible.
   • 1665, Joseph Glanvill, Scepsis Scientifica

     The deceiver soon found this soft place of Adam's.

8. Requiring little or no effort; easy.
   • 1892, Robert Louis Stevenson, The Beach of Falesá

     Before that they had been a good deal on the move, trekking about after the white man, who was one of those rolling stones that keep going round after a soft job.

9. Not bright or intense.

10. Having a slight angle from straight.

11. (linguistics) Voiced; sonant.
    • 1954, J.R.R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings

      DH represents the voiced (soft) th of English these clothes.

12. (linguistics, rare) voiceless
13. (linguistics, Slavic languages) palatalized
14. (slang) Lacking strength or resolve; not tough, wimpy.

15. (of water) Low in dissolved calcium compounds.

16. (Britain, colloquial) Foolish.
    • 1621, Robert Burton, The Essential Anatomy of Melancholy

      He made soft fellows stark noddies, and such as were foolish quite mad.

17. (physics) Of a ferromagnetic material; a material that becomes essentially non-magnetic when an external magnetic field is removed, a material with a low magnetic coercivity. (compare hard)
18. (of a person) Physically or emotionally weak.
19. Incomplete, or temporary; not a full action.

20. (Britain, of a man) Effeminate.
    • 1650, Jeremy Taylor, The Rule and Exercises of Holy Living

      A longing after sensual pleasures is a dissolution of the spirit of a man, and makes it loose, soft, and wandering.

21. Agreeable to the senses.
22. Not harsh or offensive to the sight; not glaring or jagged; pleasing to the eye.
    • 1673, Edward Browne, A Brief Account of some Travels in Hungaria, Styria, Bulgaria, Thessaly, Austria, Serbia, Carynthia, Carniola, and Friuli

      The sun, shining upon the upper part of the clouds […] made the softest lights imaginable.

23. (photography, of light) Made up of nonparallel rays, tending to wrap around a subject and produce diffuse shadows.
24. (computing) Emulated with software; not physically real.

25. (of a drug) Not likely to cause addiction.

Synonyms

• (giving way under pressure): see Thesaurus:soft
• (of a cloth): non-abrasive, fluffy
• (gentle): gentle, light, nesh
• (of a sound): quiet
• (lacking strength or resolve): meek, mild, wimpy, nesh
• (foolish): daft, foolish, silly, stupid

Antonyms

• (giving way under pressure): hard, resistant, solid, stony
• (of a cloth): abrasive, scratchy
• (gentle): harsh, rough, strong
• (acute): hard
• (of a sound): loud
• (lacking strength or resolve): firm, strict, tough
• (of water): hard
• (foolish): sensible

Derived terms

Translations

See also

• mollify

Interjection

soft

1. (archaic) Be quiet; hold; stop; not so fast.

Adverb

soft (comparative more soft, superlative most soft)

1. (obsolete) Softly; without roughness or harshness; gently; quietly.
   • There was a neat hat-and-umbrella stand, and the stranger's weary feet fell soft on a good, serviceable dark-red drugget, which matched in colour the flock-paper on the walls.

Noun

soft (plural softs)

1. A soft or foolish person; an idiot.
   • 1859, George Eliot, Adam Bede Part I, Chapter 9

     It'll do you no good to sit in a spring-cart o' your own, if you've got a soft to drive you: he'll soon turn you over into the ditch.

2. (motorsports) Ellipsis of soft tyre (A tyre whose compound is softer than mediums, and harder than supersofts.)
3. (colloquial) A soft sound or part of a sound.
   • 2012, Sam McGuire, Paul Lee, The Video Editor's Guide to Soundtrack Pro (page 103)

     The expander doesn't really make the louds louder and the softs softer in one step […]

Czech

Etymology

Borrowed from English soft(ware).

Noun

soft m

1. (colloquial) software, program
   • 18 March 1999, CD-R 74min X 80min, Group cz.comp.ibmpc:

     Zajimalo by mne, zda jsou tyto CD schopna pracovat na plnou kapacitu s normalnimi vypalovackami a beznym softem nebo je na ne potreba mit extra vypalovadlo i soft?

   • 19 March 2009, Zalohovaci SW, Group cz.talk:

     Pokud t?ch dat máte víc, pak tím TARem sta?í zálohovat základ systému a zbytek ?ešit zálohovacím softem, kterej umí d?lit archiv na n?kolik pásek.

   • 2 April 2010, gsm modul / telefon, Group cz.comp.linux:

     ma nekdo nejake zkusenosti s takovym zarizenim ci softem kterym to ovladat?

Declension

Further reading

• soft in Kartotéka Novo?eského lexikálního archivu
• soft in Slovník spisovného jazyka ?eského, 1960–1971, 1989

French

Etymology

Borrowed from English soft.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /s?ft/

Noun

soft m (plural softs)

1. (sexuality) soft porn
2. (computing, uncountable) Software.
3. (computing, countable) A piece of software.

Adjective

soft (plural softs)

1. softcore (pornography)

Italian

Etymology

Borrowed from English soft.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?s?ft/

Adjective

soft (invariable)

1. soft (tone etc; temporary (computing))

References

Polish

Etymology

Borrowed from English soft(ware).

Noun

soft m inan

1. (colloquial) software, program