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s a prisoner at the bar of a court to answer to the matter charged in an indictment or complaint. Blackstone.

the act of calling and setting a prisoner before a court to answer to an indictment or complaint.

y; sincere; guileless; ingenuous; honest; as, an artless mind; an artless tale. They were plain, artless men, without the least appearance of enthusiasm or credulity about them. Porteus. O, how unlike the complex works of man, Heaven's easy, artless, unencumbered plan! Cowper.

To affirm; to declare with assurance, or plainly and strongly; to state positively; to aver; to asseverate. Nothing is more shameful . . . than to assert anything to be done without a cause. Ray.

One who explains the higher functions and relations of the soul by the association of ideas; e. g., Hartley, J. C. Mill.

Plainness; freedom from adornment; severe simplicity. Partly owing to the studied austerity of her dress, and partly to the lack of demonstration in her manners. Hawthorne.

To defeat or evade; to invalidate. Thus, in a replication, the plaintiff may deny the defendant's plea, or confess it, and avoid it by stating new matter. Blackstone.

gard to the nature of the case; to adjudge; as, the arbitrators awarded damages to the complainant. To review The wrongful sentence, and award a new. Dryden.

n whose truth is so evident as first sight that no reasoning or demonstration can make it plainer; a proposition which it is necessary to take for granted; as, "The whole is greater than a part;" "A thing can not, at the same time, be and not be."

A coarse woolen stuff with a long nap; -- usually dyed in plain colors. A new black baize waistcoat lined with silk. Pepys.

elves with bantering several poor scholars with hopes of being at least his lordship's chaplain. De Foe.

A special plea constituting a sufficient answer to plaintiff's action.

Plain; simple; unadorned; without polish; bald; meager. "Uttering bare truth." Shak.

Elevated lands or plains on which grow small trees, but not timber; as, pine barrens; oak barrens. They are not necessarily sterile, and are often fertile. [Amer.] J. Pickering.

tle; to contend in fight; as, to battle over theories. To meet in arms, and battle in the plain. Prior.

Patient endurance; suffering without complaint.

Consisting, or made, of the wood or bark of the beech; belonging to the beech. "Plain beechen vessels." Dryden.

, as with a besom. [Archaic or Poetic] Cowper. Rolls back all Greece, and besoms wide the plain. Barlow.

To lead into perplexity or confusion, as for want of a plain path; to perplex with mazes; or in general, to perplex or confuse greatly. Lost and bewildered in the fruitless search. Addison.

A declaration made in writing, stating some wrong the complainant has suffered from the defendant, or a fault committed by some person against a law.