What's the difference between
and
Enter two words to compare and contrast their definitions, origins, and synonyms to better understand how those words are related.

Full vs Plain - What's the difference?

full | plain | Related terms |

Full is a related term of plain.


As adjectives the difference between full and plain

is that full is foul, rotten while plain is .

As an adverb plain is

(colloquial) simply.

As a noun plain is

(rare|poetic) a lamentation or plain can be an expanse of land with relatively low relief.

As a verb plain is

to lament, bewail or plain can be (obsolete|transitive) to plane or level; to make plain or even on the surface.

full

English

Etymology 1

From (etyl) full, from (etyl) . Germanic cognates include West Frisian fol, Low German vull, Dutch vol, German voll, Danish fuld, and Swedish and Norwegian .

Adjective

(er)
  • Containing the maximum possible amount of that which can fit in the space available.
  • *
    • , title= Mr. Pratt's Patients, chapter=1 , passage='Twas early June, the new grass was flourishing everywheres, the posies in the yard—peonies and such—in full bloom, the sun was shining, and the water of the bay was blue, with light green streaks where the shoal showed.}}
  • Complete; with nothing omitted.
  • * {{quote-magazine, year=2013, month=July-August, author= Catherine Clabby
    • , magazine=(American Scientist), title= Focus on Everything , passage=Not long ago, it was difficult to produce photographs of tiny creatures with every part in focus.
  • Total, entire.
  • (informal) Having eaten to satisfaction, having a "full" stomach; replete.
  • Of a garment, of a size that is ample, wide, or having ample folds or pleats to be comfortable.
  • Having depth and body; rich.
    • a full singing voice
  • (obsolete) Having the mind filled with ideas; stocked with knowledge; stored with information.
  • * Francis Bacon
    • Reading maketh a full man.
  • Having the attention, thoughts, etc., absorbed in any matter, and the feelings more or less excited by it.
    • She's full of her latest project.
  • * John Locke
    • Everyone is full of the miracles done by cold baths on decayed and weak constitutions.
  • Filled with emotions.
  • * Lowell
    • The heart is so full that a drop overfills it.
  • (obsolete) Impregnated; made pregnant.
  • * Dryden
    • Ilia, the fair, full of Mars.
    Synonyms
    * (containing the maximum possible amount) abounding, brimful, bursting, chock-a-block, chock-full, full up, full to bursting, full to overflowing, jam full, jammed, jam-packed, laden, loaded, overflowing, packed, rammed, stuffed * (complete) complete, thorough * (total) entire, total * glutted, gorged, sated, satiate, satiated, satisfied, stuffed * (of a garment) baggy, big, large, loose, outsized, oversized, voluminous
    Antonyms
    * (containing the maximum possible amount) empty * (complete) incomplete * (total) partial * empty, hungry, starving * (of a garment) close-fitting, small, tight, tight-fitting
    Derived terms
    * full as a goog * full as a tick * full beam * fullblood, full-blood, full blood * full-blown * full-bodied * full-dress * full house * fully * full marks * full moon * full name * fullness * fullscale * full stop * to the full
    Related terms
    * fill * -ful * fulfil

    Adverb

    (-)
  • (lb) Quite; thoroughly; completely; exactly; entirely.
  • *(William Shakespeare) (1564-1616)
  • *:master of a full poor cell
  • *(Joseph Addison) (1672-1719)
  • *:full in the centre of the sacred wood
  • *1819 , (John Keats), Otho the Great , Act IV, Scene I, verse 112
  • *:You know full well what makes me look so pale.
  • *(rfdate) (Dante Gabriel Rosetti), William Blake , lines 9-12
  • *:This cupboard/ this other one, / His true wife's charge, full oft to their abode / Yielded for daily bread the martyr's stone,
  • *1874 , , (The City of Dreadful Night) , IX
  • *:It is full strange to him who hears and feels, / When wandering there in some deserted street, / The booming and the jar of ponderous wheels,
  • *
  • *:Serene, smiling, enigmatic, she faced him with no fear whatever showing in her dark eyes..
    • Derived terms
    * full well

    Etymology 2

    From (etyl) fulle, fylle, fille, from (etyl) fyllu, . More at fill.

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • Utmost measure or extent; highest state or degree; the state, position, or moment of fullness; fill.
  • * Shakespeare
    • The swan's-down feather, / That stands upon the swell at full of tide.
  • * Dryden
    • Sicilian tortures and the brazen bull, / Are emblems, rather than express the full / Of what he feels.
    I was fed to the full .
  • * 1911 , Berthold Auerbach, Bayard Taylor, The villa on the Rhine :
    • he had tasted their food, and found it so palatable that he had eaten his full before he knew it.
  • * 2008 , Jay Cassell, The Gigantic Book Of Hunting Stories :
    • Early next morning we were over at the elk carcass, and, as we expected, found that the bear had eaten his full at it during the night.
  • * 2010 , C. E. Morgan, All the Living: A Novel :
    • When he had eaten his full , they set to work again.
  • (of the moon) The phase of the moon when it is entire face is illuminated, full moon.
  • * 1765 , Francis Bacon, The works of Francis Bacon :
    • It is like, that the brain of man waxeth moister and fuller upon the full of the moon: [...]
  • * 1808 , (editor), Works , Volume VII: Practical Works, Revised edition, page 219,
    • This earthly moon, the Church, hath her fulls and wanings, and sometimes her eclipses, while the shadow of this sinful mass hides her beauty from the world.
  • (label) an aerialist maneuver consisting of a backflip in conjunction and simultaneous with a complete twist
    • Derived terms
    * at full, at the full * in full * to the full (freestyle skiing) * double full * lay-full * full-full * full-double full * double full-full * lay-full-full * full-full-full * lay-double full-full * full-double full-full

    Verb

    (en verb)
  • (of the moon) To become full or wholly illuminated.
  • * 1888 September 20, " The Harvest Moon," New York Times (retrieved 10 April 2013):
    • The September moon fulls on the 20th at 24 minutes past midnight, and is called the harvest moon.
  • * 1905 , , The Little Colonel's Christmas Vacation , ch. 4:
    • "By the black cave of Atropos, when the moon fulls , keep thy tryst!"
  • * 1918 , , The Story Of Waitstill Baxter , ch. 29:
    • "The moon fulls to-night, don't it?"

    Etymology 3

    From (etyl) fullen, fulwen, from (etyl) fullian, .

    Verb

    (en verb)
  • To baptise.
    • Derived terms
    * fulling

    Etymology 4

    (etyl), from (etyl) fuller,

    Verb

    (en verb)
  • To make cloth denser and firmer by soaking, beating and pressing, to waulk, walk
    • Synonyms
    * to walk, waulk
    Derived terms
    * fuller * fuller's earth

    Statistics

    * 1000 English basic words ----

    plain

    English

    Etymology 1

    From (etyl) pleyn, playn, (etyl) plain, plein, from (etyl) .

    Adjective

    (er)
  • * Bible, (w) xl. 4
    • The crooked shall be made straight, and the rough places plain .
  • Simple.
  • # Ordinary; lacking adornment or ornamentation; unembellished.
  • #* {{quote-magazine, year=2013, month=September-October, author=(Henry Petroski)
    • , magazine=(American Scientist), title= The Evolution of Eyeglasses , passage=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 or plain glass paperweight.}}
  • # Of just one colour; lacking a pattern.
  • # Simple in habits or qualities; unsophisticated, not exceptional, ordinary.
  • #* (Henry Hammond) (1605-1660)
  • plain yet pious Christians
  • #* (Abraham Lincoln) (1809-1865)
  • the plain people
  • # (label) Having only few ingredients, or no additional ingredients or seasonings; not elaborate, without toppings or extras.
  • # (label) Containing no extended or nonprinting characters (especially in plain text).
  • Obvious.
  • # Evident to one's senses or reason; manifest, clear, unmistakable.
  • #* 1843 , (Thomas Carlyle), '', book 2, ch. XV, ''Practical — Devotional
  • In fact, by excommunication or persuasion, by impetuosity of driving or adroitness in leading, , it is now becoming plain everywhere, is a man that generally remains master at last.
  • # Downright; total, unmistakable (as intensifier).
  • Open.
  • # Honest and without deception; candid, open; blunt.
  • #* (William Shakespeare) (1564-1616)
  • an honest mind, and plain
  • # Clear; unencumbered; equal; fair.
  • #* Felton
  • Our troops beat an army in plain fight.
  • Not unusually beautiful; unattractive.
    • Synonyms
    * no-frills * normal * ordinary * simple * unadorned * unseasoned * See also
    Antonyms
    * bells and whistles * decorative * exotic * fancy * ornate
    Derived terms
    * plain and simple * plain as a pikestaff * plain as the nose on one's face * plain chocolate * plain clothes * plain-dealing * plain film * plain flour * plain-hearted * plain Jane * plain-laid * plain line * plain paper * plain sailing * plain song/plainsong * plain-spoken * plain text * plain-vanilla * plain weave * plain-winged * plainly * plainness
    Related terms
    * plane * planar

    Adverb

    (-)
  • (colloquial) Simply
    • It was just plain stupid.
    I plain forgot.

    Etymology 2

    From (etyl) plainer, pleiner, variant of (etyl) and (etyl) pleindre, plaindre, from (etyl) plangere, present active infinitive of .

    Alternative forms

    * plein

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • (rare, poetic) A lamentation.
  • * 1815 , Sir , 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

    (en verb)
  • To lament, bewail.
    • to plain a loss
  • * Bishop Joseph Hall
    • 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.
  • * , 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
    * plaint * complain

    Etymology 3

    From (etyl) plain, from (etyl) .

    Noun

    (wikipedia plain) (en noun)
  • An expanse of land with relatively low relief.
  • * Milton
    • Him the Ammonite / Worshipped in Rabba and her watery plain .
  • * 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”
  • A battlefield.
    • (Arbuthnot)
  • * Shakespeare
    • Lead forth my soldiers to the plain .
  • (obsolete) A .
    • Synonyms
    * flatlands * high plain * plateau * prairie * steppe
    Antonyms
    * cliff * gorge * mountain * vale
    Derived terms
    * abyssal plain * alluvial plain * flood plain/floodplain * gibber plain * Great Plains * peneplain * Plains * plain wanderer * salt plain * the rain in Spain falls mainly in the plain
    Related terms
    * esplanade * explain
    See also
    * grassland * meadow

    Verb

    (en verb)
  • (obsolete) To plane or level; to make plain or even on the surface.
  • * Wither
    • We would rake Europe rather, plain the East.
  • (obsolete) To make plain or manifest; to explain.
  • * Shakespeare
    • What's dumb in show, I'll plain in speech.

    Statistics

    *

    Anagrams

    * English degree adverbs ----