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The fictitious lessee acting as plaintiff in the common-law action of ejectment, the fictitious defendant being usually denominated Richard Roe. Hence, a fictitious name for a party, real or fictitious, to any action or proceeding.

Plaintively. See Doloroso.

Plaintive; pathetic; -- used adverbially as a musical direction.

more persons, with twenty-eight pieces of wood, bone, or ivory, of a flat, oblong shape, plain at the back, but on the face divided by a line in the middle, and either left blank or variously dotted after the manner of dice. The game is played by matching the spots or the blank of an unmatched half of a domino already…

In plain terms; without ceremony. We shall chide downright, id I longer stay. Shak.

rse. Now dam the ditches and the floods restrain; Their moisture has already drenched the plain. Dryden.

Destitute of that which interests or amuses; barren; unembellished; jejune; plain. These epistles will become less dry, more susceptible of ornament. Pope.

Homely; rude; coarse. [Obs.] By my troth, though I am plain and dudgeon, I would not be an ass. Beau. & Fl.

e by side, one operating the valves of the other. -- Duplex querela Etym: [L., double complaint] (Eccl. Law), a complaint in the nature of an appeal from the ordinary to his immediate superior, as from a bishop to an archbishop. Mozley & W. -- Duplex telegraphy, a system of telegraphy for sending two messages over th…

o render less painful or oppressive; to mitigate; to alleviate. My couch shall ease my complaint. Job vii. 13.

Easy or easily. [Obs.] "Eath to move with plaints." Fairfax.

To make clear; to clear up what is obscure or not understood; to explain.

Capable of being uttered or explained; utterable. Barrow.

of elasticity (Geom.), the pedal surface of an ellipsoid (see Pedal); a surface used in explaining the phenomena of double refraction and their relation to the elastic force of the luminous ether in crystalline media.

Belonging to elegy, or written in elegiacs; plaintive; expressing sorrow or lamentation; as, an elegiac lay; elegiac strains. Elegiac griefs, and songs of love. Mrs. Browning.

dicial writ of execution, by which a defendant's goods are appraised and delivered to the plaintiff, and, if no sufficient to satisfy the debt, all of his lands are delivered, to be held till the debt is paid by the rents and profits, or until the defendant's interest has expired.

A mournful or plaintive poem; a funereal song; a poem of lamentation. Shak.

One who explains or elucidates; an expositor.

prehension; to elude the force of an argument or a blow. Me gentle Delia beckons from the plain, Then, hid in shades, eludes he eager swain. Pope. The transition from fetichism to polytheism seems a gradual process of which the stages elude close definition. Tylor.

Having been the place of battle; as, an embattled plain or field. J. Baillie.