Crossword Genius

Plain in-house article? (7)

Ross

I believe the answer is:

vanilla

'plain' is the definition.
(I've seen this before)

'in-house article?' is the wordplay.
'in' means one lot of letters goes inside another.
'house' becomes 'villa' (villa is a kind of house).
'article?' becomes 'an' (English indefinite article).
'villa' going around 'an' is 'VANILLA'.

(Other definitions for vanilla that I've seen before include "devoid of special features" , "Ordinary" , "ice cream, perhaps" , "Common ice cream flavour" , "Pod that produces flavouring" .)

I've seen this clue in The Telegraph.
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