PLANE

flat, level, plane

(adjective) having a surface without slope, tilt in which no part is higher or lower than another; “a flat desk”; “acres of level farmland”; “a plane surface”; “skirts sewn with fine flat seams”

airplane, aeroplane, plane

(noun) an aircraft that has a fixed wing and is powered by propellers or jets; “the flight was delayed due to trouble with the airplane”

plane, carpenter's plane, woodworking plane

(noun) a carpenter’s hand tool with an adjustable blade for smoothing or shaping wood; “the cabinetmaker used a plane for the finish work”

plane, planer, planing machine

(noun) a power tool for smoothing or shaping wood

plane, sheet

(noun) (mathematics) an unbounded two-dimensional shape; “we will refer to the plane of the graph as the X-Y plane”; “any line joining two points on a plane lies wholly on that plane”

plane

(noun) a level of existence or development; “he lived on a worldly plane”

plane, shave

(verb) cut or remove with or as if with a plane; “The machine shaved off fine layers from the piece of wood”

plane

(verb) make even or smooth, with or as with a carpenter’s plane; “plane the top of the door”

plane, skim

(verb) travel on the surface of water

Source: WordNet® 3.1


Etymology 1

Adjective

plane (comparative planer, superlative planest)

Of a surface: flat or level.

Noun

plane (plural planes)

A level or flat surface.

(geometry) A flat surface extending infinitely in all directions (e.g. horizontal or vertical plane).

A level of existence or development. (eg, astral plane)

A roughly flat, thin, often moveable structure used to create lateral force by the flow of air or water over its surface, found on aircraft, submarines, etc.

(computing, Unicode) Any of a number of designated ranges of sequential code points.

(anatomy) An imaginary plane which divides the body into two portions.

Hyponyms

• (mathematics): real plane, complex plane

• (anatomy): coronal plane, frontal plane, sagittal plane, transverse plane

Etymology 2

Noun

plane (plural planes)

(countable) A tool for smoothing wood by removing thin layers from the surface.

Verb

plane (third-person singular simple present planes, present participle planing, simple past and past participle planed)

(transitive) To smooth (wood) with a plane.

Etymology 3

Noun

plane (plural planes)

An airplane; an aeroplane.

(entomology) Any of various nymphalid butterflies, of various genera, having a slow gliding flight. Also called aeroplanes.

(entomology) The butterfly Bindahara phocides, family Lycaenidae, of Asia and Australasia.

Verb

plane (third-person singular simple present planes, present participle planing, simple past and past participle planed)

(nautical) To move in a way that lifts the bow of a boat out of the water.

To glide or soar.

Etymology 4

Noun

plane (plural planes)

(countable) A deciduous tree of the genus Platanus.

(Northern UK) A sycamore.

Anagrams

• Alpen, Nepal, Palen, palen, panel, penal, plena

Source: Wiktionary


Plane, n. Etym: [F., fr. L. platanus, Gr. Place, and cf. Platane, Plantain the tree.] (Bot.)

Definition: Any tree of the genus Platanus.

Note: The Oriental plane (Platanus orientalis) is a native of Asia. It rises with a straight, smooth, branching stem to a great height, with palmated leaves, and long pendulous peduncles, sustaining several heads of small close-sitting flowers. The seeds are downy, and collected into round, rough, hard balls. The Occidental plane (Platanus occidentalis), which grows to a great height, is a native of North America, where it is popularly called sycamore, buttonwood, and buttonball, names also applied to the California species (Platanus racemosa).

Plane, a. Etym: [L. planus: cf. F. plan. See Plan, a.]

Definition: Without elevations or depressions; even; level; flat; lying in, or constituting, a plane; as, a plane surface.

Note: In science, this word (instead of plain) is almost exclusively used to designate a flat or level surface. Plane angle, the angle included between two straight lines in a plane.

– Plane chart, Plane curve. See under Chart and Curve.

– Plane figure, a figure all points of which lie in the same plane. If bounded by straight lines it is a rectilinear plane figure, if by curved lines it is a curvilinear plane figure.

– Plane geometry, that part of geometry which treats of the relations and properties of plane figures.

– Plane problem, a problem which can be solved geometrically by the aid of the right line and circle only.

– Plane sailing (Naut.), the method of computing a ship's place and course on the supposition that the earth's surface is a plane.

– Plane scale (Naut.), a scale for the use of navigators, on which are graduated chords, sines, tangents, secants, rhumbs, geographical miles, etc.

– Plane surveying, surveying in which the curvature of the earth is disregarded; ordinary field and topographical surveying of tracts of moderate extent.

– Plane table, an instrument used for plotting the lines of a survey on paper in the field.

– Plane trigonometry, the branch of trigonometry in which its principles are applied to plane triangles.

Plane, n. Etym: [F. plane, L. plana. See Plane, v. & a.]

1. (Geom.)

Definition: A surface, real or imaginary, in which, if any two points are taken, the straight line which joins them lies wholly in that surface; or a surface, any section of which by a like surface is a straight line; a surface without curvature.

2. (Astron.)

Definition: An ideal surface, conceived as coinciding with, or containing, some designated astronomical line, circle, or other curve; as, the plane of an orbit; the plane of the ecliptic, or of the equator.

3. (Mech.)

Definition: A block or plate having a perfectly flat surface, used as a standard of flatness; a surface plate.

4. (Joinery)

Definition: A tool for smoothing boards or other surfaces of wood, for forming moldings, etc. It consists of a smooth-soled stock, usually of wood, from the under side or face of which projects slightly the steel cutting edge of a chisel, called the iron, which inclines backward, with an apperture in front for the escape of shavings; as, the jack plane; the smoothing plane; the molding plane, etc. Objective plane (Surv.), the horizontal plane upon which the object which is to be delineated, or whose place is to be determined, is supposed to stand.

– Perspective plane. See Perspective.

– Plane at infinity (Geom.), a plane in which points infinitely distant are conceived as situated.

– Plane iron, the cutting chisel of a joiner's plane.

– Plane of polarization. (Opt.) See Polarization.

– Plane of projection. (a) The plane on which the projection is made, corresponding to the perspective plane in perspective; -- called also principal plane. (b) (Descriptive Geom.) One of the planes to which points are referred for the purpose of determining their relative position in space.

– Plane of refraction or reflection (Opt.), the plane in which lie both the incident ray and the refracted or reflected ray.

Plane, v. t. [imp. & p. p. Planed; p. pr. & vb. n. Planing.] Etym: [Cf. F. planer, L. planare, fr. planus. See Plane, a., Plain, a., and cf. Planish.]

1. To make smooth; to level; to pare off the inequalities of the surface of, as of a board or other piece of wood, by the use of a plane; as, to plane a plank.

2. To efface or remove. He planed away the names . . . written on his tables. Chaucer.

3. Figuratively, to make plain or smooth. [R.] What student came but that you planed her path. Tennyson.

Source: Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary 1913 Edition



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Word of the Day

23 November 2024

THEORETICAL

(adjective) concerned primarily with theories or hypotheses rather than practical considerations; “theoretical science”


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Coffee Trivia

Coffee has initially been a food – chewed, not sipped. Early African tribes consume coffee by grinding the berries together, adding some animal fat, and rolling the treats into tiny edible energy balls.

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