Adjacent Words

Plenty definitions

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Webster's 1828 Dictionary

PLEN'TY, n. [from L. plenus.] Abundance; copiousness; full or adequate supply; as, we have a plenty of corn for bread; the garrison has a plenty of provisions. Its application to persons, as a plenty of buyers or sellers, is inelegant.
1. Fruitfulness; a poetic use.
The teeming clouds
Descend in gladsome plenty o'er the world.
PLEN'TY, a. Plentiful; being in abundance.
Where water is plenty--
If reasons were as plenty as blackberries.
In every country where liquors are plenty.
The common sorts of fowls and the several gallinaceous species are plenty.
A variety of other herbs and roots which are plenty.
They seem formed for those countries where shrubs are plenty and water scarce.
When laborers are plenty, their wages will be low.
In the country, where wood is more plenty, they make their beams stronger.
[The use of this word as an adjective seems too well authorized to be rejected. It is universal in common parlance in the United States.]

WordNet (r) 3.0 (2005)

n
1: a full supply; "there was plenty of food for everyone" [syn: plenty, plentifulness, plenteousness, plenitude, plentitude]
2: (often followed by `of') a large number or amount or extent; "a batch of letters"; "a deal of trouble"; "a lot of money"; "he made a mint on the stock market"; "see the rest of the winners in our huge passel of photos"; "it must have cost plenty"; "a slew of journalists"; "a wad of money" [syn: batch, deal, flock, good deal, great deal, hatful, heap, lot, mass, mess, mickle, mint, mountain, muckle, passel, peck, pile, plenty, pot, quite a little, raft, sight, slew, spate, stack, tidy sum, wad] adv
1: as much as necessary; "Have I eaten enough?"; (`plenty' is nonstandard) "I've had plenty, thanks" [syn: enough, plenty]

Merriam Webster's

I. noun Etymology: Middle English plente, from Anglo-French plent้, from Late Latin plenitat-, plenitas, from Latin, fullness, from plenus full — more at full Date: 13th century 1. a. a full or more than adequate amount or supply <had plenty of time to finish the job> b. a large number or amount <in plenty of trouble> 2. the quality or state of being copious ; plentifulness II. adjective Date: 14th century 1. plentiful in amount, number, or supply <if reasons were as plenty as blackberries — Shakespeare> 2. ample <plenty work to be done — Time> Usage: Many commentators object to use of sense 2 in writing; it appears to be limited chiefly to spoken English. Sense 1 is literary but is no longer in common use. III. adverb Date: 1842 more than sufficiently ; to a considerable degree <the nights were plenty cold — F. B. Gipson> Usage: Many handbooks advise avoiding the adverb plenty in writing; “use very, quite, or a more precise word,” they advise. Actually plenty is often a more precise word than its recommended replacements; very, fully, or quite will not work as well in these typical quotations <it's already plenty hot for us in the kitchen without some dolt opening the oven — C. H. Bridges> <may not be rising quite as rapidly as other health costs, but it is going up plenty fast — Changing Times>. It is not used in more formal writing.

Oxford Reference Dictionary

n., adj., & adv. --n. (often foll. by of) a great or sufficient quantity or number (we have plenty; plenty of time). --adj. colloq. existing in an ample quantity. --adv. colloq. fully, entirely (it is plenty large enough). Etymology: ME plenteth, plente f. OF plentet f. L plenitas -tatis f. plenus full

Webster's 1913 Dictionary

Plenty Plen"ty, n.; pl. Plenties, in --Shak. [OE. plentee, plente, OF. plent['e], fr. L. plenitas, fr. plenus full. See Full, a., and cf. Complete.] Full or adequate supply; enough and to spare; sufficiency; specifically, abundant productiveness of the earth; ample supply for human wants; abundance; copiousness. ``Plenty of corn and wine.'' --Gen. xxvii. 28. ``Promises Britain peace and plenty.'' --Shak. Houses of office stuffed with plentee. --Chaucer. The teeming clouds Descend in gladsome plenty o'er the world. --Thomson. Syn: Abundance; exuberance. See Abundance.

Webster's 1913 Dictionary

Plenty Plen"ty, a. Plentiful; abundant. [Obs. or Colloq.] If reasons were as plenty as blackberries. --Shak. (Folio ed.) Those countries where shrubs are plenty. --Goldsmith.

Collin's Cobuild Dictionary

Frequency: The word is one of the 3000 most common words in English. 1. If there is plenty of something, there is a large amount of it. If there are plenty of things, there are many of them. Plenty is used especially to indicate that there is enough of something, or more than you need. There was still plenty of time to take Jill out for pizza... Most businesses face plenty of competition... Are there plenty of fresh fruits and vegetables in your diet? QUANT: QUANT of n-uncount/pl-n • Plenty is also a pronoun. I don't believe in long interviews. Fifteen minutes is plenty... PRON 2. Plenty is a situation in which people have a lot to eat or a lot of money to live on. (FORMAL) You are all fortunate to be growing up in a time of peace and plenty. 3. You use plenty in front of adjectives or adverbs to emphasize the degree of the quality they are describing. (INFORMAL) The water looked plenty deep... The compartment is plenty big enough... ADV: ADV adj/adv [emphasis]

Soule's Dictionary of English Synonyms

I. n. 1. Fulness, sufficiency, plenitude, enough, adequate supply. 2. Abundance, copiousness, luxuriance, exuberance, profusion, affluence, fertility, overflow. II. a. Abundant, plentiful.

Foolish Dictionary

A desirable condition that is likely to step out whenever Extravagance steps in.

Moby Thesaurus

a deal, a great deal, a lot, abounding, abundance, abundant, abundantly, accumulation, acres, adequate, affluence, affluent, all-sufficing, amassment, ample, ample sufficiency, ampleness, amplitude, aplenty, as all creation, as all get-out, avalanche, backlog, bags, barely sufficient, barrels, beaucoup, bonanza, bottomless, bounteous, bountiful, bountifulness, bountiousness, budget, bumper crop, bushel, collection, commensurate, commissariat, commissary, competent, considerable, considerably, copious, copiousness, cornucopia, corresponding, countlessness, cumulation, decent, deluge, diffuse, due, dump, effuse, embarras de richesses, enough, epidemic, equal to, ever so, ever so much, exhaustless, extravagance, extravagancy, extravagant, exuberance, exuberant, fat, fertile, fertility, fit, flood, flow, flush, foison, full, full measure, fullness, galore, generosity, generous, generousness, good, good enough, great abundance, great deal, great plenty, greatly, gush, heap, heaps, highly, hoard, in great measure, in plenty, in quantity, inexhaustible, infinitude, innumerability, inundation, inventory, landslide, larder, largely, lavish, lavishness, liberal, liberality, liberalness, load, loads, lot, lots, luxuriance, luxuriant, many, manyness, mass, masses, material, materials, materiel, maximal, maximum, mess, minimal, minimum, money to burn, more than enough, mountain, mountains, much, muchly, multifariousness, multifoldness, multiplicity, multitude, multitudes, multitudinousness, munitions, myriad, myriads, never so, no end, no end of, not a little, numbers, numerous, numerousness, ocean, oceans, oodles, opulence, opulency, opulent, outpouring, overabundance, overaccumulation, overbounteousness, overcopiousness, overdose, overflow, overflowing, overlavishness, overluxuriance, overmeasure, overmuchness, overnumerousness, overplentifulness, overplenty, overpopulation, overprofusion, oversufficiency, oversupply, pack, peck, pile, piles, plenitude, plenitudinous, plenteous, plenteousness, plentiful, plentifulness, plenty good enough, plethora, pretty much, prevailing, prevalence, prevalent, prodigal, prodigality, productive, productiveness, profuse, profuseness, profusion, profusive, proportionate, provisionment, provisions, quantities, quantity, rampant, rations, redundancy, repertoire, repertory, replete, repleteness, repletion, rich, rich harvest, rich vein, richness, rick, rife, rifeness, riot, riotous, riotousness, running over, satisfactory, scads, scores, sea, shower, sight, slews, so, so very much, spate, stack, stacks, stock, stock-in-trade, stockpile, store, stores, stream, substantial, substantiality, substantialness, sufficient, sufficient for, sufficing, suitable, superabundance, superabundant, superfluity, superflux, supplies, supply on hand, swarmingness, teeming, teemingness, to the skies, tons, treasure, treasury, up to, very much, volume, wealth, wealthy, well-found, well-furnished, well-provided, well-stocked, wholesale, world, worlds