<B>plaint, </B>noun.<DL COMPACT><DD><B> 1. </B><B>=complaint.</B> <DD><B> 2. </B>(Law.) an oral or written statement of the cause for an action. <DD><B> 3. </B>(Archaic.) a lament. </DL>
<A NAME="plaintext">
<B>plaintext, </B>noun.<DL COMPACT><DD><B> 1. </B>the text of any message that conveys an intelligible meaning in the language in which it is written, having no hidden meaning. <DD><B> 2. </B>the intelligible text intended for, or derived from, a cryptogram. <BR> <I>Ex. Cryptography aims at making the message unintelligible to outsiders by various transformations of the plaintext (Scientific American).</I> </DL>
<A NAME="plaintiff">
<B>plaintiff, </B>noun.<DL COMPACT><DD> a person who begins a lawsuit. <BR> <I>Ex. The plaintiff accused the defendant of fraud.</I> </DL>
<A NAME="plaintive">
<B>plaintive, </B>adjective.<DL COMPACT><DD> expressive of sorrow; mournful; sad. <BR> <I>Ex. a plaintive song, the plaintive cry of a bird.</I> (SYN) melancholy, doleful, sorrowful. adv. <B>plaintively.</B> noun <B>plaintiveness.</B> </DL>
<A NAME="plaintripe">
<B>plain tripe,</B><DL COMPACT><DD> the walls of the first stomach or rumen of a ruminant animal, especially of a steer or cow, used as food. </DL>
<A NAME="plainvanilla">
<B>plain-vanilla, </B>adjective.<DL COMPACT><DD> ( U.S. Informal.) ordinary; without embellishment; run-of-the-mill. <BR> <I>Ex. Academic America ... obligates with-it deans to create jobs (feminist, structuralist, post-structuralist, ... even plain-vanilla theoretical) (Washington Times).</I> </DL>
<A NAME="plainweave">
<B>plain weave,</B><DL COMPACT><DD> a simple weave of lengthwise threads set evenly with crosswise threads over one warp and under the next. Gingham, percale, shantung, and tweed are plain weave. </DL>
<A NAME="plainwoven">
<B>plain-woven, </B>adjective.<DL COMPACT><DD> woven with a plain weave, without twill, figure, or the like. </DL>
<A NAME="plaisance">
<B>plaisance, </B>noun.<DL COMPACT><DD> a pleasure ground or place of amusements. <BR> <I>Ex. the Midway Plaisance at Chicago in 1893.</I> </DL>
<B>plait, </B>noun.<DL COMPACT><DD><B> 1. </B>a braid of hair, ribbon, and the like. <BR> <I>Ex. She wore her hair in a plait.</I> <DD><B> 2. </B><B>=pleat.</B> <DD><I>v.t. </I> <B>1. </B>to braid. <BR> <I>Ex. She plaits her hair.</I> <DD><B> 2. </B>to pleat. <BR> <I>Ex. [He] wore his shirt plaited and puffed out (Washington Irving).</I> </DL>
<A NAME="plaitedstitch">
<B>plaited stitch,</B><DL COMPACT><DD> a long embroidery stitch making a pattern similar to herringbone. </DL>
<A NAME="plan">
<B>plan, </B>noun, verb, <B>planned,</B> <B>planning.</B><DL COMPACT><DD><I>noun </I> <B>1. </B>a way of making or doing something that has been worked out beforehand; scheme of action. <BR> <I>Ex. Our summer plans were upset by Mother's illness.</I> <DD><B> 2. </B>a way of proceeding; method. <BR> <I>Ex. The good old rule ... the simple plan, That they should take, who have the power, And they should keep who can (Wordsworth).</I> <DD><B> 3. </B>a drawing or diagram to show how a garden, a floor of a house, a park, or the like, is arranged. <BR> <I>Ex. The builder took a pencil and drew a rough plan of the garage on a plank.</I> <DD><B> 4. </B>a drawing or diagram of any object, made by projection upon a flat surface, usually a horizontal plane. <DD><I>v.t. </I> <B>1. </B>to think out beforehand how (something) is to be made or done; decide on methods and materials; design, scheme, or devise. <BR> <I>Ex. Have you planned your trip?</I> <DD><B> 2. </B>to have in mind as a purpose; intend. <BR> <I>Ex. I plan to reach New York by train on Tuesday and stay two days.</I> <DD><B> 3. </B>to make a plan of; prepare a drawing or diagram of. <DD><I>v.i. </I> to make a plan or plans. </DL>
<A NAME="planar">
<B>planar, </B>adjective.<DL COMPACT><DD> of, having to do with, or situated in a plane. </DL>
<A NAME="planarian">
<B>planarian, </B>noun, adjective.<DL COMPACT><DD><I>noun </I> any one of a group of chiefly aquatic turbellarian flatworms that are bilaterally symmetrical and have cilia and an intestine divided into three main branches. <BR> <I>Ex. A planarian can regenerate missing body parts. If the body is cut into two or three pieces, each piece can grow into a whole planarian (J. A. McLeod).</I> <DD><I>adj. </I> of or belonging to the planarians. </DL>
<A NAME="planarity">
<B>planarity, </B>noun.<DL COMPACT><DD> the quality or state of being planar; flatness. <BR> <I>Ex. the planarity of the molecular structure.</I> </DL>
<A NAME="planation">
<B>planation, </B>noun.<DL COMPACT><DD> (Geology.) the process of erosion and deposition by which a stream produces a nearly level land surface. </DL>
<A NAME="planch">
<B>planch</B> or <B>planche, </B>noun.<DL COMPACT><DD><B> 1. </B>a slab or flat piece of metal, stone, or baked clay. <DD><B> 2. </B>(Dialect.) <DD><B> a. </B>a plank; board. <DD><B> b. </B>a floor. </DL>
<A NAME="planchet">
<B>planchet, </B>noun.<DL COMPACT><DD> a flat piece of metal to be stamped to form a coin. </DL>
<A NAME="planchette">
<B>planchette, </B>noun.<DL COMPACT><DD><B> 1. </B>a small board supported on two casters and a vertical pencil. The pencil is supposed to write words or phrases when a person rests his fingers lightly on the planchette. <DD><B> 2. </B>the small board on legs that touches letters or words on an Ouija board. </DL>
<A NAME="plancksconstant">
<B>Planck's constant,</B><DL COMPACT><DD> (Physics.) a universal constant having the value of the ratio of the energy of a quantum to its frequency, that is, energy equals Planck's constant times frequency. (Value:) 6.624 X (10 to the power of 27) erg-sec. </DL>
<A NAME="plane">
<B>plane</B> (1), noun, adjective, verb, <B>planed,</B> <B>planing.</B><DL COMPACT><DD><I>noun </I> <B>1. </B><B>=airplane.</B> <DD><B> 2. </B>a level; grade. <BR> <I>Ex. Try to keep your work on a high plane.</I> <DD><B> 3. </B>a flat or level surface. <BR> <I>Ex. The plane of the table was warped by dampness.</I> <DD><B> 4. </B>a thin, flat, or curved supporting surface of an airplane. <DD><B> 5. </B>a surface such that if any two points on it are joined by a straight line, the line will be contained wholly in the surface. <DD><I>adj. </I> <B>1. </B>flat; level; not convex or concave. <BR> <I>Ex. The plane lens was like a coin, without curvature.</I> <DD><B> 2. </B>having a flat or level surface. <DD><B> 3. </B>being wholly in a plane. <BR> <I>Ex. a plane figure.</I> <DD><B> 4. </B>of or having to do with figures in a plane. See also <B>plane geometry.</B> <DD><I>v.i. </I> <B>1. </B>to travel by airplane. <BR> <I>Ex. The President's son planed in from Washington (Time).</I> <DD><B> 2. </B>to glide or soar, as an airplane does. <DD><B> 3. </B>(of a boat or water skier) to rise slightly out of the water while moving at great speed. <DD><B> 4. </B>(of an automobile) to rise slightly from the surface of a wet road on a thin layer of water while traveling at high speed. noun <B>planeness.</B> </DL>
<A NAME="plane">
<B>plane</B> (2), noun, verb, <B>planed,</B> <B>planing.</B><DL COMPACT><DD><I>noun </I> <B>1. </B>a carpenter's tool with a blade for smoothing or shaping wood. <DD><B> 2. </B>a machine for smoothing or removing metal. <DD><B> 3. </B>a mason's tool resembling a large wooden trowel, used to smooth or level the surface of clay, of sand in a mold, or of mortar or plaster in a wall. <DD><I>v.t. </I> <B>1. </B>to smooth or level (wood) with a plane; use a plane on. <DD><B> 2. </B>to remove or shave with a plane. <DD><I>v.i. </I> <B>1. </B>to work with or use a plane. <BR> <I>Ex. a rosy-cheeked Englishman ... up to his knees in shavings, and planing away at a bench (Herman Melville).</I> <DD><B> 2. </B>to function or be intended to function as a plane. </DL>
<A NAME="plane">
<B>plane</B> (3), noun.<DL COMPACT><DD> (British.) the plane tree. </DL>
<A NAME="planeangle">
<B>plane angle,</B><DL COMPACT><DD> an angle formed by the intersection of two straight lines in the same plane. </DL>
<A NAME="planegeometry">
<B>plane geometry,</B><DL COMPACT><DD> the branch of geometry that deals with figures lying in one plane. </DL>
<A NAME="planeiron">
<B>plane iron,</B><DL COMPACT><DD> the cutting blade of a plane. </DL>
<A NAME="planeload">
<B>planeload, </B>noun.<DL COMPACT><DD> a full load of passengers or freight in an aircraft. </DL>
<A NAME="planemaker">
<B>planemaker, </B>noun.<DL COMPACT><DD> (U.S.) an aircraft manufacturer. </DL>
<A NAME="planeofsymmetry">
<B>plane of symmetry,</B><DL COMPACT><DD> a vertical plane that divides a symmetrical object, such as an aircraft, into symmetrical halves. </DL>
<A NAME="planepolarized">
<B>plane-polarized, </B>adjective.<DL COMPACT><DD> (of light) polarized so that all the vibrations of the waves take place in one plane. </DL>
<A NAME="planepost">
<B>plane-post, </B>transitive verb.<DL COMPACT><DD> (British.) to send or convey (letters or other mail) by plane post. </DL>
<A NAME="planepost">
<B>plane post,</B><DL COMPACT><DD> (British.) a postal service conducted by airplane; air post. </DL>
<A NAME="planer">
<B>planer, </B>noun.<DL COMPACT><DD> a person or thing that planes, especially a machine for planing wood or for finishing flat surfaces on metal. </DL>
<A NAME="planertree">
<B>planer tree,</B><DL COMPACT><DD> a small tree of the elm family, of the southeastern United States, producing a small, oval, nutlike fruit and having a hard, light-brown wood. </DL>
<A NAME="planesailing">
<B>plane sailing,</B><DL COMPACT><DD> the navigation of a vessel in which courses are plotted and distances estimated as if the earth's surface were a plane. </DL>
<B>planeside, </B>noun, adjective.<DL COMPACT><DD><I>noun </I> the area beside an airplane: <DD><I>adj. </I> at the planeside; beside an airplane. <BR> <I>Ex. a planeside interview.</I> </DL>
<A NAME="planespotter">
<B>plane spotter,</B><DL COMPACT><DD> a person, usually a civilian volunteer, who watches for the enemy, or any unidentified, aircraft in an area of the sky. </DL>
