plant
/plɑːnt/ noun, verb, proper noun
- noun (botany) An organism that is not an animal, especially an organism capable of photosynthesis, and typically a small or herbaceous organism of this kind, rather than a tree. “The garden had a couple of trees, and a cluster of colourful plants around the border.”
- noun (botany) An organism of the kingdom Plantae, and 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.
- noun (ecology) Now specifically, a multicellular eukaryote that includes chloroplasts in its cells, which have a cell wall.
- noun (obsolete) A young tree, vine, shrub, or herb; a sapling.
- noun (proscribed as biologically inaccurate) Any creature that grows on soil or similar surfaces, including plants and fungi.
- noun (countable) A factory or other industrial or institutional building or facility. “The company has production plants in three countries.”
- noun (uncountable) Machinery and other supplies and equipment, such as the kind used in heavy industry, light industry, earthmoving, or construction. “industrial plant”
- noun (Australia) The equipment and work animals of a drover or other rural worker travelling through the countryside.
- verb (ambitransitive) To place (a seed or plant) in soil or other substrate in order that it may live and grow.
- verb (transitive) To furnish or supply with plants. “to plant a garden, an orchard, or a forest”
- verb (transitive) To place (an object, or sometimes a person), often with the implication of intending deceit. “That gun’s not mine! It was planted there by the real murderer!”
- verb (transitive) To place or set something firmly or with conviction. “to plant cannon against a fort; to plant a flag; to plant one’s feet on solid ground”
- verb (transitive) To place in the ground.
- verb (transitive) To engender; to generate; to set the germ of.
- verb (transitive) To furnish with a fixed and organized population; to settle; to establish. “to plant a colony”
- verb (transitive) To introduce and establish the principles or seeds of. “to plant Christianity among the heathen”
- proper noun A surname from English.
- proper noun A surname from French.
- proper noun A surname, variant of Plante.
- proper noun An unincorporated community in Van Buren County, Arkansas, United States.
Synonyms
capital equipment seed works industrial plant flora plant life set implant engraft embed imbed establish found constitute institute
Etymology
From Middle English plante, from Old English plante (“young tree or shrub, herb newly planted”), from Proto-West Germanic *plantu, from Latin planta (“sprout, shoot, cutting”). Broader sense of "any vegetable life, vegetation generally" is from Old French plante. Doublet of clan (borrowed through Celtic languages) and planta (directly from Latin).
The verb is from Middle English planten, from Old English plantian (“to plant”), from Latin plantāre, later influenced by Old French planter. Compare also Dutch planten (“to plant”), German pflanzen (“to plant”), Swedish plantera (“to plant”), Icelandic planta (“to plant”).
The factory and machinery senses comes from the Latin sense of "any vegetable production that serves to propagate the species," which refers to something that produces.
An English and French surname, from the noun plant. Also compare Plantier.
Webster’s 1913
- noun 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.
- noun A bush, or young tree; a sapling; hence, a stick or staff. "A plant of stubborn oak." Dryden.
- verb To put in the ground and cover, as seed for growth; as, to plant maize.
- verb To set in the ground for growth, as a young tree, or a vegetable with roots.
Etymology [AS. plante, L. planta.]
Etymology [AS. plantian, L. plantare. See Plant, n.]
Sources: Wiktionary · WordNet 3.0 · Webster’s 1913 — from the Wiktionary entry “plant”, CC BY-SA 4.0. Details