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Plane   /pleɪn/   Listen
noun
Plane  n.  (Bot.) Any tree of the genus Platanus. Note: 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 (Platanus occidentalis), 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 (Platanus racemosa).


Plane  n.  
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.
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 refraction or Plane of reflection (Opt.), the plane in which lie both the incident ray and the refracted or reflected ray.


verb
Plane  v. t.  (past & past part. planed; pres. part. planing)  
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."
3.
Figuratively, to make plain or smooth. (R.) "What student came but that you planed her path."


Plane  v. i.  Of a boat, to lift more or less out of the water while in motion, after the manner of a hydroplane; to hydroplane.


adjective
Plane  adj.  Without elevations or depressions; even; level; flat; lying in, or constituting, a plane; as, a plane surface. Note: 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.





Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48


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"Plane" Quotes from Famous Books



... of the excellent piece of advice, "Know thyself," never alluding to that sentiment again during the course of a protracted existence! Why, the truths a man carries about with him are his tools; and do you think a carpenter is bound to use the same plane but once to smooth a knotty board with, or to hang up his hammer after it has driven its first nail? I shall never repeat a conversation, but an idea often. I shall use the same types when I like, but not commonly the same stereotypes. A thought is often original, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various
... box sextant or an azimuth compass was to be found in camp. Somewhat to my surprise it turned out, upon inquiry, that no such things were to be had. I therefore had recourse to what is known among engineers as a "plane table," which I was obliged to extemporise; and with this apparatus, used in conjunction with a carefully measured line, three hundred yards in length, I was soon able to supply the information required. The whole ...
— Under the Ensign of the Rising Sun - A Story of the Russo-Japanese War • Harry Collingwood
... North Carolina, across the sound from Roanoke Island, is the site of the first flight of a man in an aeroplane, the Wright brothers having tried out their first crude plane there, among the Kill-Devil sand dunes. A part of the original plane is preserved in the museum. Nor must I leave the museum without mentioning the bullet-riddled hat of General W.R. Cox, and his gray ...
— American Adventures - A Second Trip 'Abroad at home' • Julian Street
... Avogadro a third of a century before. Avogadro's hypothesis that there are equal numbers of these molecules in equal volumes of gases, under fixed conditions, was revived by Gerhardt, and a little later, under the championship of Cannizzaro, was exalted to the plane of a fixed law. Thenceforth the conception of the molecule was to be as dominant a thought in chemistry as the idea of the atom had ...
— A History of Science, Volume 4(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams
... not only give up their comfort for each other, and especially for their children, but even their lives themselves. With human beings one can tell how high a given one is in the scale of humanity by the amount of love he has. Some persons have very little, and they are nearer the animal plane: some have a great deal, and the more they have, the less selfish they are, the higher they have risen. For love is the real stamen that fertilizes the world and makes it grow, and the more one has of it the more life one ...
— Every Girl's Book • George F. Butler


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