plainness

Part of the Cenotaph's power is its plainness.

The plainness of Mallory Portnoy’s Stella was epitomized by the way she cuffed her jeans.

Typically employed in the standard forms in which any contractor could order them from a foundry or quarry, the materials were arranged directly on the ground, with a plainness and Pythagorean purity that brought to mind cairns or sacred tessellation.

And because of their lack of plainness, these pieces will surely become heirlooms, recycled gold and lab-grown diamonds worn again and again by generations to come.

In his writing about Mr. Hitchens, Mr. Amis “accesses a depth of feeling and plainness of language entirely new to his work,” the Times critic Parul Sehgal wrote in praising “Inside Story.”