plant

Picture dictionary
organism
tree conifer bush flower

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”).

(This etymology is missing or incomplete. Please add to it, or discuss it at the Etymology scriptorium. Particularly: “What is the etymology of the factory (noun 5) and machinery (noun 11) senses?”)

• (General Australian, US, Canada, Northern England) enPR: plănt, IPA^(key): /plænt/,
• (New Zealand, Received Pronunciation) enPR: plänt, IPA^(key): /plɑːnt/,
• (æ-tensing) IPA^(key):

• Audio (US):

  (file)

• Audio (UK):

  (file)

• Hyphenation: plant
• Rhymes: -ɑːnt, -ænt

plant (plural plants)

1. (botany) 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.

   The garden had a couple of trees, and a cluster of colourful plants around the border.

   • 2013 May-June, Katrina G. Claw, “Rapid Evolution in Eggs and Sperm”, in American Scientist, volume 101, number 3, page 217:

     In plants, the ability to recognize self from nonself plays an important role in fertilization, because self-fertilization will result in less diverse offspring than fertilization with pollen from another individual. Many genes with reproductive roles also have antibacterial and immune functions, which indicate that the threat of microbial attack on the sperm or egg may be a major influence on rapid evolution during reproduction.

3. (botany) 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.
4. (ecology) Now specifically, a multicellular eukaryote that includes chloroplasts in its cells, which have a cell wall.
5. (proscribed as biologically inaccurate) Any creature that grows on soil or similar surfaces, including plants and fungi.
7. A factory or other industrial or institutional building or facility.
8. An object placed surreptitiously in order to cause suspicion to fall upon a person.

   That gun’s not mine! It’s a plant! I’ve never seen it before!

9. (slang, obsolete) A stash or cache of hidden goods.
10. Anyone assigned to behave as a member of the public during a covert operation (as in a police investigation).
11. A person, placed amongst an audience, whose role is to cause confusion, laughter etc.
12. (snooker) A play in which the cue ball knocks one (usually red) ball onto another, in order to pot the second; a set.
    • 2008 April 28, Phil Yates, The Times:

      O’Sullivan risked a plant that went badly astray, splitting the reds.

13. (uncountable) Machinery, such as the kind used in earthmoving or construction.
14. (obsolete) A young tree; a sapling; hence, a stick or staff.
    • 1694, “The Third Book of Virgil's Georgicks”, in John Dryden, transl., The Annual Miscellany, for the Year 1694, 2nd edition, London: Jacob Tonson, published 1708, page 185:

      Take, Shepherd, take a Plant of ſtubborn Oak; / And labour him with many a ſturdy ſtroke: / Or with hard Stones, demoliſh from afar / His haughty Creſt, the feat of all the War.

15. (obsolete) The sole of the foot.
    • 1611, Ben Jonson, “Oberon, the Faery Prince”, in The Works of Ben Jonson, volume V, London: D. Midwinter et al., published 1756, page 384:

      Knotty legs, and plants of clay, / Seek for eaſe, or love delay.

16. (dated, slang) A plan; a swindle; a trick.
    • 1850 March 30, Charles Dickens, “A Detective Police Party”, in Household Words, volume 1, page 413:

      It wasn’t a bad plant that of mine, on Fikey, the man accused of forging the Sou’ Westeru Railway debentures—it was only t’ other day—because the reason why? I’ll tell you.

17. An oyster which has been bedded, in distinction from one of natural growth.
18. (US, dialect) A young oyster suitable for transplanting.
19. (control theory) The combination of process and actuator.

The scientific definition of what organisms should be considered plants changed dramatically during the 20th century. Bacteria, algae, and fungi are no longer considered plants by those who study them. Many textbooks do not reflect the most current thinking on classification.

• (biology): Archaeplastida

• plant pot
• plant room

• → Punjabi: ਪਲਾਂਟ (palāṇṭ)

plant (third-person singular simple present plants, present participle planting, simple past and past participle planted)

1. (transitive, intransitive) To place (a seed or plant) in soil or other substrate in order that it may live and grow.
2. (transitive) To furnish or supply with plants.

   to plant a garden, an orchard, or a forest

   • 1848, Jacob Abbott, “Story I. Labour Lost.—Elky.”, in Rollo at Work: Or, The Way for a Boy to Learn to be Industrious‎, London: James S. Hodson, page 5:

     His father had given him a little square bed in a corner of the garden, which he had planted with corn two days before.

   • 1991 November 26, Don Trivette, “How Does Your Garden Grow? With Silver Bells And Mouse Button Clicks”, in PC Mag‎, volume 10, number 20, Ziff Davis, Inc., →ISSN, page 604:

     With your mouse, you plant a garden by selecting plants from a database of 450 of the most common flowers, shrubs, and trees.

3. (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!

   • 1999, Terry Prone, The Skywriter, page 182:

     Not only that, I thought, but cynics would now theorise that the interview piece was a PR exercise, a planted story designed as damage-limitation in the event that some probing journalist revealed all about the love nest.

4. (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

   Plant your feet firmly and give the rope a good tug.

   • 2011 January 15, Sam Sheringham, “Chelsea 2 - 0 Blackburn Rovers”, in BBC‎:

     First Anelka curled a shot wide from just outside the box, then Lampard planted a header over the bar from Bosingwa's cross.

5. (transitive) To place in the ground.
   • 1780, William Cowper, “Light Shining out of Darkneſs”, in Twenty-ſix Letters on Religious Subjects To which are added Hymns ‎, 4th edition, page 252:

     God moves in a myſterious way, / His wonders to perform; / He plants his footſteps in the ſea, / And rides upon the ſtorm.

   • 2007, Richard Laymon, Savage, page 118:

     Sarah, she kissed each of her grandparents on the forehead. They were planted in a graveyard behind the church.

6. (transitive) To engender; to generate; to set the germ of.
   • c. 1590–1592 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Taming of the Shrew”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies  (First Folio), London: Isaac Iaggard, and Ed Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, :

     It engenders choler, planteth anger.

7. (transitive) To furnish with a fixed and organized population; to settle; to establish.

   to plant a colony

   • 1625, Francis [Bacon], “Of Plantations”, in The Essayes , 3rd edition, London: Iohn Haviland for Hanna Barret, →OCLC:

     planting of countries like planting of woods

8. (transitive) To introduce and establish the principles or seeds of.

   to plant Christianity among the heathen

9. (transitive) To set up; to install; to instate.
   • c. 1593 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedy of Richard the Third: ”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies  (First Folio), London: Isaac Iaggard, and Ed Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, :

     We will plant some other in the throne.

• faceplant, handplant
• plant foot
• plant out

• plantation

• plant on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

• “plant”, in OneLook Dictionary Search.
• plant in Britannica Dictionary
• plant in Macmillan Collocations Dictionary
• plant in Sentence collocations by Cambridge Dictionary
• plant in Ozdic collocation dictionary
• plant in WordReference English Collocations

plant

1. imperative of plante

Dutch Wikipedia has an article on:

planten

Wikipedia ^nl

From Middle Dutch plante, from Latin planta.^[1] Doublet of clan.

• IPA^(key): /plɑnt/

• Audio:

  (file)

• Hyphenation: plant
• Rhymes: -ɑnt

plant f (plural planten, diminutive plantje n)

1. plant, any member of the kingdom Plantae

   Hyponyms: boom, gewas, gras, heester, mos, struik, vaatplant

2. (potentially offensive) cabbage, vegetable (person with severe brain damage)

• Negerhollands: plan, plant

See the etymology of the corresponding lemma form.

• IPA^(key): /plɑnt/

• Audio:

  (file)

• Hyphenation: plant

plant

1. inflection of planten:
   1. first/second/third-person singular present indicative
   2. imperative

See the etymology of the corresponding lemma form.

• IPA^(key): (Belgium) /plɑnt/, (Netherlands) /plɛnt/

• Audio:

  (file)

• Hyphenation: plant

plant

1. inflection of plannen:
   1. second/third-person singular present indicative
   2. (archaic) plural imperative

Deverbal from planter. Doublet of plan (“plan, map”).

• IPA^(key): /plɑ̃/

• Audio:

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• Homophones: plan, plans, plants

plant m (plural plants)

1. seedling
2. young plant or plantation

• laisser en plant

• “plant”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé , 2012.

plant

1. inflection of planen:
   1. third-person singular present
   2. second-person plural present
   3. plural imperative

From French plante (“plant”).

• IPA^(key): /plãt/

plant

1. plant (organism)

From French plante.

• IPA^(key):

plant

1. a plant

plant

1. Medial form of plante; to plant.

plant

1. Alternative form of planete (“planet”)

plant

1. imperative of plante

• IPA^(key): /plɑnt/

plant

1. imperative of planta

• IPA^(key): /plɑːnt/

plant

1. neuter singular of plan

Borrowed from Latin planta.

plant pl

1. children

   (Can we add an example for this sense?)

• Welsh: plant
• → Old Irish: cland, clann
  • Middle Irish: clann
    • Irish: clann
    • Manx: cloan
    • Scottish Gaelic: clann
      • → English: clan (see there for further descendants)

plant

1. indefinite neuter singular of plan

From Old Welsh plant, from Latin planta.

• IPA^(key): /plant/

• Audio:

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ant

plant m (collective, singulative plentyn)

1. children, young people
2. children (of parents), offspring (sometimes of animals), progeny, issue; descendants
   • 1620, Revised version of William Morgan’s translation of the Bible, Joel 1:3:

     Mynegwch hyn i’ch plant, a’ch plant i’w plant hwythau, a’u plant hwythau i genhedlaeth arall.

     Tell ye your children of it, and let your children tell their children, and their children another generation. (KJV)

3. followers, disciples, servants
4. people regarded as product of a particular place, time, event, circumstances, etc.

• R. J. Thomas, G. A. Bevan, P. J. Donovan, A. Hawke et al., editors (1950–present), “plant”, in Geiriadur Prifysgol Cymru Online (in Welsh), University of Wales Centre for Advanced Welsh & Celtic Studies

West Frisian Wikipedia has an article on:

plant

Wikipedia ^fy

Ultimately from Latin planta. This etymology is incomplete. You can help Wiktionary by elaborating on the origins of this term.

plant c (plural planten, diminutive plantsje)

1. plant

• “plant (I)”, in Wurdboek fan de Fryske taal (in Dutch), 2011