Meanings
- UKdatedinformalnot comparablesimileSynonym of plain as day.
‘Your chummage ticket,’ replied Mr. Roker; ‘you’re up to that?’ ‘Not quite,’ replied Mr. Pickwick, with a smile. ‘Why,’ said Mr. Roker, ‘it’s as plain as Salisbury. You’ll have a chummage ticket upon twenty-seven in the third, and them as is in the room will be your chums.’
1836 March – 1837 October, Charles Dickens, “(please specify the chapter name)”, in The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club, London: Chapman and Hall, […], published 1837, →OCLC1 more example
If I can't show you I've come by them honestly, perhaps you'd rather not have them, though, if nicely cooked and dished up, I'll be bound they can be made to prove, as plain as Salisbury, that you've no more right to the estate — nor to the name of Kerr, for all that — than that gentleman yonder.
1893, Egerton Castle, Consequences, page 248Synonyms: plain as day
Synonyms & antonyms
adjectiveSynonym of plain as day.
Origin
Presumably a pun on Salisbury Plain, or perhaps in reference to the spire of Salisbury Cathedral, which can be seen at a distance.
Full word history & related roots →Cite this entry
plain as Salisbury. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 5, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/plain%20as%20Salisbury
“plain as Salisbury.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/plain%20as%20Salisbury. Accessed November 5, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “plain as Salisbury,” accessed November 5, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/plain%20as%20Salisbury.
Source: plain as Salisbury on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.