Chapter Plainness to Planisphere of P by Webster's Dictionary (1913 Edition)

3. (Mech.) A block or plate having a perfectly flat surface, used as a standard of flatness; a surface plate.

4. (Joinery) A tool for smoothing boards or other surfaces of wood, for forming moldings, etc. It consists of a smooth-soled stock, usually of wood, from the under side or face of which projects slightly the steel cutting edge of a chisel, called the iron, which inclines backward, with an apperture in front for the escape of shavings; as, the jack plane; the smoothing plane; the molding plane, etc.

Objective plane (Surv.), the horizontal plane upon which the object which is to be delineated, or whose place is to be determined, is supposed to stand. — Perspective plane. See Perspective. — Plane at infinity (Geom.), a plane in which points infinitely distant are conceived as situated. — Plane iron, the cutting chisel of a joiner's plane. — Plane of polarization. (Opt.) See Polarization. — Plane of projection. (a) The plane on which the projection is made, corresponding to the perspective plane in perspective; — called also principal plane. (b) (Descriptive Geom.) One of the planes to which points are referred for the purpose of determining their relative position in space. — Plane of refractionor reflection (Opt.), the plane in which lie both the incident ray and the refracted or reflected ray.

Plane
(Plane), v. t. [imp. & p. p. Planed ; p. pr. & vb. n. Planing.] [Cf. F. planer, L. planare, fr. planus. See Plane, a., Plain, a., and cf. Planish.]

1. To make smooth; to level; to pare off the inequalities of the surface of, as of a board or other piece of wood, by the use of a plane; as, to plane a plank.

2. To efface or remove.

He planed away the names . . . written on his tables.

Chaucer.

3. Figuratively, to make plain or smooth. [R.]

What student came but that you planed her path.

Tennyson.

Plane-parallel
(Plane`-par"al*lel) a. (Optics) Having opposite surfaces exactly plane and parallel, as a piece of glass.

Planer
(Plan"er) n.

1. One who, or that which, planes; a planing machine; esp., a machine for planing wood or metals.

2. (Print.) A wooden block used for forcing down the type in a form, and making the surface even. Hansard.

Planer centers. See under Center.

Planer tree
(Plan"er tree`) [From J. S. Planer, a German botanist.] (Bot.) A small-leaved North American tree (Planera aquatica) related to the elm, but having a wingless, nutlike fruit.

Planet
(Plan"et) n. [OE. planete, F. planète, L. planeta, fr. Gr. and a planet; prop. wandering, fr. to wander, fr. a wandering.]

1. (Astron.) A celestial body which revolves about the sun in an orbit of a moderate degree of eccentricity. It is distinguished from a comet by the absence of a coma, and by having a less eccentric orbit. See Solar system.

The term planet was first used to distinguish those stars which have an apparent motion through the constellations from the fixed stars, which retain their relative places unchanged. The inferior planets are Mercury and Venus, which are nearer to the sun than is the earth; the superior planets are Mars,