plæce

Borrowed from Latin platea, from Ancient Greek πλατεῖα (plateîa). This must have been borrowed into early Old English after Anglo-Frisian brightening, but before i-mutation as *platiǣ, cf. Læden, mæġester. The Aldredian stem plæċ-, and the Rushworth Gospel gloss plæ(t)s-, illustrate a change in later Old English whereby the sequence -tj- began to be conflated with -ċċ-, cf. ortġeard, fetian; thus serving as evidence that both palatalization, and later affrication, did likely also occur in Old Northumbrian.

• IPA^(key): /ˈplæ.t͡ʃe/

plæċe f (Northumbrian)

1. place, open space

   Synonym: worþ

2. street

   Synonym: worþ (Northumbrian)

   Synonym: strǣt

Weak feminine (n-stem):

Mainly found in the dative plural, no singular forms are attested. The form plætsa (acc. pl.) shows regular loss of final -n in late Old Northumbrian; although the ending -an is usually spelled -o, this inconsistency can be explained by late unstressed vowel confusion.

• Middle English: place, plaace, plache, plas, plasce, plase, plasse (conflated with Old French place)
  • English: place (dialectal pleace)
    • Pijin: ples
    • Tok Pisin: ples
  • Scots: place, pleece

• Joseph Bosworth, T. Northcote Toller (1898) “plæce”, in An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, second edition, Oxford: Oxford University Press.