Synonyms of plainly

plainly

adverb

1

as in openly

in an honest and direct manner

you'll have to tell your relatives very plainly that you don't like perfume, or they'll keep giving it to you

Synonyms & Similar Words

• openly
• sincerely
• plain
• honestly
• straightforwardly
• simply
• straightforward
• abruptly
• forthrightly
• directly
• straight
• frankly
• sharply
• baldly
• candidly
• bluntly
• earnestly
• unreservedly
• curtly
• brusquely
• rudely
• truthfully
• foursquare
• artlessly
• unguardedly
• gruffly
• inconsiderately
• impolitely
• openheartedly
• bluffly
• tactlessly
• veraciously
• point-blank

Antonyms & Near Antonyms

• politely
• tactfully
• wordily
• courteously
• verbosely
• diplomatically
• civilly
• falsely
• erroneously
• mendaciously
• untruthfully
• deceitfully
• indirectly
• hypocritically
• long-windedly
• fallaciously
• ambiguously
• insincerely
• equivocally
• evasively
• circuitously

2

as in certainly

without any question

your wife is plainly upset that you didn't invite her to the game with us

Synonyms & Similar Words

• certainly
• surely
• definitely
• clearly
• sure
• probably
• really
• undoubtedly
• likely
• easily
• truly
• assuredly
• so
• unquestionably
• undeniably
• indisputably
• damn well
• for certain
• doubtless
• indeed
• by all means
• possibly
• incontestably
• obviously
• perhaps
• incontrovertibly
• inarguably
• unarguably
• for sure
• all right
• alright
• by all odds
• forsooth
• conceivably
• unmistakably
• hands down

Example Sentences

Recent Examples of plainly

And while reports of offset drama have gained traction, Acaster has plainly not enjoyed himself in that cloak. — Lily Ford, HollywoodReporter, 29 Oct. 2026

The following year, a New York sportswriter named Aloysious Palma made the point plainly. — Zachary Kranc, Sun Sentinel, 27 Oct. 2026

Shoppers are being told plainly that premium pricing does not equal better results. — Samantha Agate, Miami Herald, 26 Oct. 2026

Adams, usually so conciliatory, plainly voices her disgust with the unethical Mexican clinic which gave McQueen false hope, and side-eyes his late-in-life turn to Christianity. — Hadley Hall Meares, Vanity Fair, 20 Oct. 2026

Date nights every other week would plainly drive up child-care costs and render average couples with two toddlers at home prostrate with envy. — Business Columnist, Los Angeles Times, 20 Oct. 2026

Put more plainly, an It-item sits at the intersection of hot and shoppable. — Joan Kennedy, Vogue, 20 Oct. 2026

Those last three words—according to circumstances—put the matter most plainly and charted the stakes of the entire war that would follow. — Literary Hub, 19 Oct. 2026

Yann LeCun, the Turing laureate who ran Meta’s AI research for a decade before leaving in November 2025 to found Advanced Machine Intelligence Labs, has been saying it plainly since 2023. — Stephen Messer, Fortune, 16 Oct. 2026