Word.ws English Dictionary

plain English

plain English noun: english that does not use any jargon or technical or scientific terminology; simple or easily comprehensible words or language, usually denoting a form restricted by good sense alone, as contrasted with a codified form via controlled natural language.

Noun

plain English (uncountable)

  1. English that does not use any jargon or technical or scientific terminology; simple or easily comprehensible words or language, usually denoting a form restricted by good sense alone, as contrasted with a codified form via controlled natural language.
    • I wish these lawyers would give us a plain English summary of their dense legalese.

Questions about plain English

What does plain English mean?
Plain English means english that does not use any jargon or technical or scientific terminology; simple or easily comprehensible words or language, usually denoting a form restricted by good sense alone, as contrasted with a codified form via controlled natural language.
What part of speech is plain English?
Plain English is a noun.

Words near plain English in the dictionary

  1. plain dealing
  2. plain dealings
  3. plain dress
  4. plain Dunstable
  5. Plain Dutch
  6. plain English
  7. plain film
  8. plain films
  9. plain flour
  10. plain flours
  11. plain Jane

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: plain English (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “plain English.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/plain_english. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.