plenty - Wiktionary, the free dictionary (original) (raw)

From Wiktionary, the free dictionary

From Anglo-Norman plent(é) +‎ -y, from Middle English plentie, plentee, plente, from Anglo-Norman plenté, from Old French plenté, from Latin plēnitātem, accusative of plēnitās (“fullness”), from plenus (“complete, full”), from Proto-Indo-European *pl̥h₁nós (“full”), from which English full also comes, via Proto-Germanic. Related to the Latin derivatives replenish, plenary, complete, deplete, replete.

plenty (countable and uncountable, plural plenties)

  1. A more-than-adequate amount; plenitude.
    We are lucky to live in a land of peace and plenty.
    • 1798, Thomas Malthus, An Essay on the Principle of Population:
      During this season of distress, the discouragements to marriage, and the difficulty of rearing a family are so great that population is at a stand. In the mean time the cheapness of labour, the plenty of labourers, and the necessity of an increased industry amongst them, encourage cultivators to employ more labour upon their land, to turn up fresh soil, and to manure and improve more completely what is already in tillage

While some dictionaries analyse this word as a noun,[1][2] others analyse it as a pronoun,[3] or as both a noun and a pronoun.[4][5][6]

a more-than-adequate amount — see also abundancy

plenty

  1. More than enough.
    Acquire one of these and you'll have plenty of car for your money.

See the notes about the noun.

plenty (not comparable) (Canada, US)

  1. More than sufficiently.
    This office is plenty big enough for our needs.
    • 1932, Delos W. Lovelace, King Kong, published 1965, page 1:
      For the likes of her, the down-at-heels support of Hoboken pier was plenty good enough.
  2. (colloquial) Used as an intensifier, very.
    She was plenty mad at him.

more than sufficiently or very

plenty (colloquial, nonstandard)

  1. much, enough
    There'll be plenty time later for that
  2. many
    Get a manicure. Plenty men do it.

plenty (comparative more plenty, superlative most plenty)

  1. (obsolete) Plentiful.
    • 1597, Shakespeare, Henry IV, Part I, Act I, Scene IV:
      if reasons were as plenty as blackberries
    • 1749, Henry Fielding, The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling, volume (please specify |volume=I to VI), London: A[ndrew] Millar, […], →OCLC:
      There are, among the Irish, men of as much worth and honour as any among the English: nay, to speak the truth, generosity of spirit is rather more common among them. I have known some examples there, too, of good husbands; and I believe these are not very plenty in England.
    • 1836, The American Gardener's Magazine and Register, volume 2, page 279:
      Radishes are very plenty. Of cabbages a few heads of this year's crop have come to hand this week, and sold readily at quotations; […]
  1. ^ “plenty”, in Dictionary.com Unabridged, Dictionary.com, LLC, 1995–present.
  2. ^ “plenty”, in Merriam-Webster.com Online Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster, 1996–present.
  3. ^ Macmillan
  4. ^ “oxforddictionaries.com”, in (Please provide the book title or journal name)‎[1], 28 February 2014 (last accessed), archived from the original on 8 May 2014
  5. ^ Harrap's essential English Dictionary (1996)
  6. ^ Heinemann English Dictionary (2001)

plenty

  1. nominative plural of plenta