Does Jane Austen usually use the word plain to describe someone as Ugly?
I have assembled as many relevant quotes (see below) as I could find in Austen's works and I have a pretty good idea that "plain" is the opposite of handsome/pretty.
Etymoline agrees, "Of appearance, as a euphemism for "ill-favored, ugly" it dates from 1749."
One thing to add, there are many vaccine-preventable childhood illnesses, smallpox among them (which was being vaccinated for but this was new), that could cause permanent facial scarring. I'll put a mild example below the jump (do not Google if you are squeamish). I wonder if some of the "plain" people that Jane Austen was imagining were plain for this reason. Also, Sir Walter talks about plain women in Bath, but as it was a health destination, he may be seeing people who are actually ill.
Facial scarring from smallpox
Pride & Prejudice
Mary, who having, in consequence of being the only plain one in the family, worked hard for knowledge and accomplishments, was always impatient for display.
Not that I think Charlotte so very plain; but then she is our particular friend... Oh dear, yes; but you must own she is very plain. Lady Lucas herself has often said so, and envied me Jane’s beauty. (Mrs. Bennet)
Sense & Sensibility
When their promised visit to the Park and consequent introduction to these young ladies took place, they found in the appearance of the eldest, who was nearly thirty, with a very plain and not a sensible face, nothing to admire
Mansfield Park
Her brother was not handsome: no, when they first saw him he was absolutely plain, black and plain; but still he was the gentleman, with a pleasing address.
In a quiet way, very little attended to, she paid her tribute of admiration to Miss Crawford’s beauty; but as she still continued to think Mr. Crawford very plain, in spite of her two cousins having repeatedly proved the contrary, she never mentioned him.
She was then merely a quiet, modest, not plain-looking girl, but she is now absolutely pretty.
Emma
She was a plain, motherly kind of woman, who had worked hard in her youth
Oh! not handsome—not at all handsome. I thought him very plain at first, but I do not think him so plain now.
He is very plain, undoubtedly—remarkably plain:—but that is nothing compared with his entire want of gentility
Miss Campbell always was absolutely plain—but extremely elegant and amiable.
Mr. Dixon, you say, is not, strictly speaking, handsome?”
“Handsome! Oh! no—far from it—certainly plain. I told you he was plain.”
“My dear, you said that Miss Campbell would not allow him to be plain, and that you yourself—”
“Oh! as for me, my judgment is worth nothing. Where I have a regard, I always think a person well-looking. But I gave what I believed the general opinion, when I called him plain.”
Persuasion
He hoped she might make some amends for the many very plain faces he was continually passing in the streets.
Miss Carteret, with still less to say, was so plain and so awkward, that she would never have been tolerated in Camden Place but for her birth.
“I think very differently,” answered Elizabeth, shortly; “an agreeable manner may set off handsome features, but can never alter plain ones."
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