- a variation of plain clothes.
plainclothes
Americanadjective
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.
Despite punishing attacks on internal security organizations, including bases and command centers of the Revolutionary Guard and the plainclothes Basij militias, there has been no indication of serious defections or division.
From The Wall Street Journal • Mar. 14, 2026
Residents said members of the paramilitary Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and of the Basij, their plainclothes enforcers, are visible on the streets of Tehran and other Iranian cities.
From The Wall Street Journal • Mar. 12, 2026
According to news site Der Spiegel the search in Frankfurt involved around 30 plainclothes investigators.
From Barron's • Jan. 28, 2026
The brief, but tense encounter Sunday, caught partially on video, raises concerns as it joins a growing list of cases of masked and plainclothes agents being mistaken for criminals and vice versa.
From Los Angeles Times • Nov. 10, 2025
The plainclothes police officer handed him a fifty-cent piece and pointed.
From "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?" by Philip K. Dick
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.
