Plain People
Americanplural noun
Etymology
Origin of Plain People
An Americanism dating back to 1870–75
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
There are “regulars”: The Brother, a monstrous chancer; Keats and Chapman, literary dandies with a weakness for puns; and the Plain People of Ireland, a sort of unreliable chorus.
From The Guardian • Jan. 7, 2017
More remote than ever from the Plain People, Herbert Clark Hoover still has unbounded faith in himself and the ultimate justification of his own policies and methods.
From Time Magazine Archive
The Amish of Wayne, Holmes and Tuscarawas Counties, Ohio, are among the ' plainest of the picture-book Plain People.
From Time Magazine Archive
For geneticists the fascinating fact about the Old Order Amish, one of the sects of the Pennsylvania Dutch country's "Plain People," is that they all are descended from about 200 immigrants of 200 years ago.
From Time Magazine Archive
One must keep one's faith in the People—the Plain People, the Burgesses, the Grocers—else of all men the artists are most miserable and their teachings vain.
From An Englishman Looks at the World by Wells, H. G. (Herbert George)
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
