Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. Botany Any of various photosynthetic, eukaryotic, multicellular organisms of the kingdom Plantae characteristically producing embryos, containing chloroplasts, having cellulose cell walls, and lacking the power of locomotion.
- n. Botany A plant having no permanent woody stem; an herb.
- n. A building or group of buildings for the manufacture of a product; a factory.
- n. The equipment, including machinery, tools, instruments, and fixtures and the buildings containing them, necessary for an industrial or manufacturing operation.
- n. The buildings, equipment, and fixtures of an institution: the entire plant of a university.
- n. A person or thing put into place in order to mislead or function secretly, especially:
- n. A person placed in a group of spectators to influence behavior.
- n. A person stationed in a given location as a spy or observer.
- n. A misleading piece of evidence placed so as to be discovered.
- n. A remark or action in a play or narrative that becomes important later.
- n. Slang A scheming trick; a swindle.
- v. To place or set (seeds, for example) in the ground to grow.
- v. To place seeds or young plants in (land); sow: plant a field in corn.
- v. To place (spawn or young fish) in water or an underwater bed for cultivation: plant oysters.
- v. To stock with spawn or fish.
- v. To introduce (an animal) into an area.
- v. To set firmly in position; fix: planted both feet on the ground.
- v. To establish; found: plant a colony.
- v. To fix firmly in the mind; implant: "The right of revolution is planted in the heart of man” ( Clarence Darrow).
- v. To station (a person) for the purpose of functioning in secret, as by observing, spying, or influencing behavior: Detectives were planted all over the store.
- v. To place secretly or deceptively so as to be discovered or made public: planted a gun on the corpse to make the death look like suicide.
- v. To conceal; hide: planted the stolen goods in the warehouse.
- v. Slang To deliver (a blow or punch).
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. A shoot or slip recently sprouted from seed, or rooted as a cutting or layer; especially. such a slip ready for transplanting, as one of the cabbage-plants, tomato-plants, etc., of the market.
- n. A sapling; hence, a stick or staff; a cudgel.
- n. An herb or other small vegetable growth, in contrast with trees.
- n. An individual living being with a material organism, not animal in its nature; a member of the vegetable kingdom; a vegetable, in the widest sense while the difference between plants and animals in all their higher forms is clearly marked, science has hitherto been unable to fix upon any one absolutely universal criterion between them. Nothing perhaps is so distinctive of the plant as its power to appropriate and assimilate mineral matter directly, whereas most animals live on the products of previous organization. The plant thus mediates in the scheme of nature between the mineral and the animal world, forming an essential condition of most animal existence. But many plants, including the whole group of Fungi, and the saprophytic, parasitic, and carnivorous flowering plants, live wholly or in part on organic matter, while not all animals are confined to organic nutriment. See
animal and Protista. For the fundamental classification of plants, seeCryptogamia and Phanerogamia. - n. The fixtures, machinery, tools, apparatus, appliances, etc., necessary to carry on any trade or mechanical business, or any mechanical operation or process.
- n. Concealed plunder.
- n. A trick; dodge; swindle; artifice.
- n. In fish-culture, a deposit of fry or eggs.
- n. plural Oysters which have been bedded: in distinction from natives: as, Virginia plants.
- n. plural Young oysters suitable for planting or transplantation.
- To put or set in the ground for growth, as seed, young shoots, cuttings, vegetables with roots, etc.: as, to plant potatoes; to plant trees.
- To lay out and prepare by putting or setting seed, etc., in the ground; furnish with plants: as, to plant a garden or an orchard.
- To implant; sow the seeds or germs of; engender.
- To put; place; set; especially, to post or place firmly in position; fix; set up: as, he planted himself in front of me; to plant a standard on the enemy's battlements.
- To establish or set up for the first time; introduce and establish: as, to plant Christianity among the heathen; to plant a colony.
- To furnish; provide with something that is set in position or in order.
- To introduce and establish new settlers in; settle; colonize.
- To place or locate as colonists or settlers.
- To hide; conceal; place in concealment, as plunder or swag.
- In fish-culture, to deposit (eggs or fry) in a river, lake, or pond.
- To bed (oysters); bed down, transplant, or sow (young or small oysters).
- To put, as gold or the like, in the ground, or in a pretended mine, where it can be easily found, for the purpose of affecting the price of the land; also, to treat, as land, in this way; “salt.”
- To sow seed or set shoots, etc., in the soil, that they may grow.
- To settle down; locate as settlers or colonists; take up abode as a new inhabitant, or as a settler in a new country or locality; settle.
- n. The sole of the foot, or the foot itself. See planta.
- n. In billiards generally, the lay or position of balls; in pocket-pool, a sure shot from frozen balls; in one kind of pin-pool, a procedure by which a player may unwittingly make another, instead of himself, winner of the stakes.
- In chess, to play (a piece) to a square whence it cannot easily be dislodged.
Wiktionary
- n. An organism that is not an animal, especially an organism capable of photosynthesis. Typically a small or herbaceous organism of this kind, rather than a tree.
- n. An organism of the kingdom Plantae; now specifically, a living organism of the Embryophyta (land plants) or of the Chlorophyta (green algae), a eukaryote that includes double-membraned chloroplasts in its cells containing chlorophyll a and b, or any organism closely related to such an organism.
- n. Now specifically, a multicellular eukaryote that includes chloroplasts in its cells, which have a cell wall.
- n. Any creature that grows on soil or similar surfaces, including plants and fungi.
- n. A factory or other industrial or institutional building or facility.
- n. An object placed surreptitiously in order to cause suspicion to fall upon a person.
- n. Anyone assigned to behave as a member of the public during a covert operation (as in a police investigation).
- n. A person, placed amongst an audience, whose role is to cause confusion, laughter etc.
- n. A play in which the cue ball knocks one (usually red) ball onto another, in order to pot the second; a set.
- n. A large piece of machinery, such as used in earthmoving or road construction.
- v. To place (a seed or plant) in soil or other substrate in order that it may live and grow.
- v. To place (an object, or sometimes a person), often with the implication of intending deceit.
- v. To place or set something firmly or with conviction.
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. A vegetable; an organized living being, generally without feeling and voluntary motion, and having, when complete, a root, stem, and leaves, though consisting sometimes only of a single leafy expansion, or a series of cellules, or even a single cellule.
- n. A bush, or young tree; a sapling; hence, a stick or staff.
- n. The sole of the foot.
- n. The whole machinery and apparatus employed in carrying on a trade or mechanical business; also, sometimes including real estate, and whatever represents investment of capital in the means of carrying on a business, but not including material worked upon or finished products.
- n. A plan; an artifice; a swindle; a trick.
- n. An oyster which has been bedded, in distinction from one of natural growth.
- n. A young oyster suitable for transplanting.
- v. To put in the ground and cover, as seed for growth.
- v. To set in the ground for growth, as a young tree, or a vegetable with roots.
- v. To furnish, or fit out, with plants.
- v. To engender; to generate; to set the germ of.
- v. To furnish with a fixed and organized population; to settle; to establish.
- v. To introduce and establish the principles or seeds of.
- v. To set firmly; to fix; to set and direct, or point
- v. To set up; to install; to instate.
- v. To perform the act of planting.
WordNet 3.0
- v. fix or set securely or deeply
- n. an actor situated in the audience whose acting is rehearsed but seems spontaneous to the audience
- n. buildings for carrying on industrial labor
- n. (botany) a living organism lacking the power of locomotion
- v. put firmly in the mind
- v. set up or lay the groundwork for
- v. place into a river
- v. put or set (seeds, seedlings, or plants) into the ground
- v. place something or someone in a certain position in order to secretly observe or deceive
- n. something planted secretly for discovery by another
Etymologies
- Middle English plante, from Old English and Old French, both from Latin planta, sprout, seedling; see plat- in Indo-European roots.
Examples
“Yes, they were behind the plant, I was in front of the plant ”
“Settle, then, which -- plant or ivy -- Dickens supposed the reader to know least about, and which, therefore, Dickens was telling him about; and you settle which word -- _plant_ or _ivy_ -- is the subject.”
Higher Lessons in English A work on english grammar and composition
“_The plant bore the "Jacks," _ standing by itself, is a complete sentence; but by using _that_ for _plant_ the whole expression is made to do the work of an adjective.”
“It is a significant fact, however, that the plant experimented with by the Commission was _cress -- a non-leguminous plant_.”
“Juan de Sousa stood immediately on his defence, and sent advice to the viceroy and the neighbouring commanders of his danger, trusting however to the strength of his defences, and particularly to a pallisade or _bound hedge_, which he had made of the plant named _lechera_ or the _milk plant_, which throws out when cut a milky liquor which is sure to blind any one if it touches their eyes.”
“If this is done any time in the winter, by the autumn following they will have taken good root; the ftrongeft of which layers will be then fit to plant out; whilft thofe that are weaker may be plant* ed in the nurfcry-ground, to gain ftrength.”
Internet Archive: Planting and Ornamental Gardening: A Practical Treatise
“That's because public utility commissions usually have to show that the power from a certain plant is needed by their customers before they can give their approval and pass on the huge costs of building the lines.”
“Carbohydrates the word comes from carbon/hydrogen/oxygen—so you should hear the word plant in there somewhere are one of three main nutrients in foods.”
“The title plant, Hibiscus x ‘Kopper King’ was not really from a friend, it was purchased at our favorite local nursery Mouse Creek.”
“The life and growth and happy self-realization of an institution is not the bricks and mortar -- it is a living and elastic entity -- never too stable, never too finished, a growing and plastic plant -- to use a metaphor that has slipped in perhaps without arousing all the implications the term plant might carry and does carry.”
A Psychiatric Milestone Bloomingdale Hospital Centenary, 1821-1921
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘plant’.
-
steffany(grade 2)
accident, agree, arrive, astronomy, attention, award, aware, balance, banner, bare, base, beach and 127 more...
-
Down on the Farm
All things farm and agriculture related.
barn, tractor, cow, hay, horse, pig, corn, plough, irrigation, subsidies, crops, plant and 260 more...
-
Nature and Environment
north, east, west, mountain, sea, beach, river, northeast, northwest, southeast, southwest, island and 205 more...
-
-ant
"Ant -- that's like, an animal right? So important ... importbear."
mordant, surfactant, rant, supplant, chant, plant, figurant, currant, flagrant, scant, savant, grant and 1 more...
-
a beginners' list
a beginner's list should be about novices and all those that start on new journeys
noob, beginner, new, left foot, threshold, dawn, start, go, adventurer, undeterred, brave, foolish and 61 more...

Comments
No comments yet...
Log in or sign up to get involved in the conversation. It's quick and easy.