1. A floor of wood; also, a plank. [Obs.] Bacon.
2. (Arch.) The under side of a cornice; a soffit.
Plancher
(Planch"er), v. t. To form of planks. [Obs.] Golding.
Planchet
(Planch"et) n. [F. planchette a small board, dim. of planche. See Planch.] A flat piece of
metal; especially, a disk of metal ready to be stamped as a coin.
Planchette
(Plan`chette") n. [F. See Planchet.]
1. A circumferentor. See Circumferentor.
2. A small tablet of wood supported on casters and having a pencil attached. The characters produced
by the pencil on paper, while the hand rests on the instrument and it is allowed to move, are sometimes
translated as of oracular or supernatural import.
Planching
(Planch"ing) n. The laying of floors in a building; also, a floor of boards or planks.
Plane
(Plane) n. [F., fr. L. platanus, Gr. fr. broad; — so called on account of its broad leaves and spreading
form. See Place, and cf. Platane, Plantain the tree.] (Bot.) Any tree of the genus Platanus.
The Oriental plane (Platanus orientalis) is a native of Asia. It rises with a straight, smooth, branching
stem to a great height, with palmated leaves, and long pendulous peduncles, sustaining several heads
of small close-sitting flowers. The seeds are downy, and collected into round, rough, hard balls. The
Occidental plane which grows to a great height, is a native of North America, where it is popularly called
sycamore, buttonwood, and buttonball, names also applied to the California species
Plane
(Plane) a. [L. planus: cf. F. plan. See Plan, a.] Without elevations or depressions; even; level; flat; lying
in, or constituting, a plane; as, a plane surface.
In science, this word (instead of plain) is almost exclusively used to designate a flat or level surface.
Plane angle, the angle included between two straight lines in a plane. — Plane chart, Plane curve.
See under Chart and Curve. — Plane figure, a figure all points of which lie in the same plane. If
bounded by straight lines it is a rectilinear plane figure, if by curved lines it is a curvilinear plane figure.
— Plane geometry, that part of geometry which treats of the relations and properties of plane figures.
— Plane problem, a problem which can be solved geometrically by the aid of the right line and circle
only. — Plane sailing (Naut.), the method of computing a ship's place and course on the supposition
that the earth's surface is a plane. — Plane scale (Naut.), a scale for the use of navigators, on which
are graduated chords, sines, tangents, secants, rhumbs, geographical miles, etc. — Plane surveying,
surveying in which the curvature of the earth is disregarded; ordinary field and topographical surveying
of tracts of moderate extent. — Plane table, an instrument used for plotting the lines of a survey on
paper in the field. — Plane trigonometry, the branch of trigonometry in which its principles are applied
to plane triangles.
Plane
(Plane), n. [F. plane, L. plana. See Plane, v. & a.]
1. (Geom.) A surface, real or imaginary, in which, if any two points are taken, the straight line which
joins them lies wholly in that surface; or a surface, any section of which by a like surface is a straight
line; a surface without curvature.
2. (Astron.) An ideal surface, conceived as coinciding with, or containing, some designated astronomical
line, circle, or other curve; as, the plane of an orbit; the plane of the ecliptic, or of the equator.
