Word.ws English Dictionary

plains

/pleɪnz/

plains is the plural of plain.

plains is the third-person singular simple present indicative of plain.

Meaning of plain

Noun (1)

plain (plural plains)

  1. An expanse of land with relatively low relief and few trees, especially a grassy expanse.
    • Him the Ammonite / Worshipped in Rabba and her watery plain.1667, John Milton, “Book I”, in Paradise Lost. […], London: […] [Samuel Simmons], and are to be sold by Peter Parker […]; [a]nd by Robert Boulter […]; [a]nd Matthias Walker, […], →OCLC; republished...
  2. A broad, flat expanse in general, as of water.
    • Fair ship, that from the Italian shore,
      ⁠Sailest the placid ocean-plains
      ⁠With my lost Arthur’s loved remains,
      Spread thy full wings, and waft him o’er.1850, [Alfred, Lord Tennyson], “Canto IX”, in In Memoriam, London: Edward Moxon, […], →OCLC
  3. (archaic) Synonym of field in reference to a battlefield.
    • You have stormed no town and found the money there ; neither did you find it in the plains of Plassey after the defeat of the Nawab1899, Alexander John Arbuthnot, Lord Clive: The Foundation of British Rule in India
    Synonyms:
    field in reference to a battlefield

Noun (2)

plain (plural plains)

  1. (poetic, rare) A lamentation.
    • The warrior-threat, the infant's plain,
      The mother's screams, were heard in vain;1815, Sir Walter Scott, The Lady of the Isles, Canto IV, part IX

See all 24 meanings of plain

Proper noun capitalized: Plains

Plains

  1. (US, with-definite-article) The Great Plains region of North America.
  2. (British, India, with-definite-article) The lowland regions of India from which colonial administrators and their families relocated to higher-elevation hill stations with cooler climates during the summer months.
    • It was an honest letter, written by an honest man, then stewing in the Plains on two hundred rupees a month (for he allowed his wife eight hundred and fifty), and in a silk banian and cotton trousers.1889, Rudyard Kipling, “At the Pit's Mouth”, in Under the Deodars, Boston: The Greenock Press, published 1899, page 50
  3. A ghost town in California.
  4. A minor city in Sumter County, Georgia.
  5. A city in Meade County, Kansas.
  6. An unincorporated community in Forsyth Township, Marquette County, Michigan.
  7. A town in Sanders County, Montana.
  8. A township and census-designated place therein, in Luzerne County, Pennsylvania.
  9. An unincorporated community in Borden County, Texas.
  10. A town, the county seat of Yoakum County, Texas.
  11. A village in North Lanarkshire council area, Scotland (OS grid ref NS7966).

Words formed from plains

Phrases with plains

66 more phrasesFewer phrases

Words that rhyme with plains

22 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about plains

What does plains mean?
Plains means the Great Plains region of North America.
What is plains the plural of?
Plains is the plural of plain.
What part of speech is plains?
Plains is a proper noun.
How do you pronounce plains?
Plains is pronounced /pleɪnz/.

Words near plains in the dictionary

  1. plainliest
  2. plainlike
  3. plainly
  4. plainness
  5. plainnesses
  6. plains
  7. Plains Apache
  8. plains bison
  9. plains buffalo
  10. Plains Cree
  11. plains larkspur

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: plains (page history and authors); Plains (page history and authors); plain (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.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-plains.ogg.

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