plant

Meaning

Noun

1. 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.
2. 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.
3. Now specifically, a multicellular eukaryote that includes chloroplasts in its cells, which have a cell wall.
4. (proscribed) Any creature that grows on soil or similar surfaces, including plants and fungi.
5. (countable) A factory or other industrial or institutional building or facility.
6. (uncountable) Machinery and other supplies and equipment, such as the kind used in heavy industry, light industry, earthmoving, or construction.
7. An object placed surreptitiously in order to cause suspicion to fall upon a person.
8. (obsolete, slang) A stash or cache of hidden goods.
9. Anyone assigned to behave as a member of the public during a covert operation (as in a police investigation).
10. A person, placed amongst an audience, whose role is to cause confusion, laughter etc.
11. A play in which the cue ball knocks one (usually red) ball onto another, in order to pot the second; a set.
12. (obsolete) A young tree; a sapling; hence, a stick or staff.
13. (obsolete) The sole of the foot.
14. (dated, slang) A plan; a swindle; a trick.
15. An oyster which has been bedded, in distinction from one of natural growth.
16. (US, dialectal) A young oyster suitable for transplanting.
17. A system, such as a motor, whose behaviour is being regulated or controlled by a control system.
18. (UK, obsolete, slang) A position in the street to sell from; a pitch.

Verb

1. (ambitransitive) 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.
3. (transitive) To place (an object, or sometimes a person), often with the implication of intending deceit.
4. (transitive) To place or set something firmly or with conviction.
5. (transitive) To place in the ground.
6. (transitive) To engender; to generate; to set the germ of.
7. (transitive) To furnish with a fixed and organized population; to settle; to establish.
8. (transitive) To introduce and establish the principles or seeds of.
9. (transitive) To set up; to install; to instate.

Synonyms

sow

factory

🏭

tree

🌳

grow

mill

works

cultivate

vegetable

implant

set

bury

seed

place

fruit

found

shrub

establish

embed

erect

lay

vegetation

transplant

herb

🌿

garden

flora

constitute

put

workshop

institute

grass

farm

manufactory

installation

install

bush

set up

shoot

sprout

scatter

industrial plant

weed

arrange

till

holy thistle

imbed

sapling

root

engraft

plant life

stem

Translations

planta

🌱

Pflanze

🌱

planter

🌱

plante

planta

🌱

pianta

🌱

plantar

🌱

semer

pflanzen

🌱

piantare

🌱

usine

🏭

plant

🌱

plantar

🌱

sembrar

🌱

Pronounced as (IPA)

/plɑːnt/

Etymology

Inherited from Middle English: plante

Inherited from Old English: plante

Cognate with Old French: plante

Inherited from Middle English: planten

Inherited from Old English: plantian

Cognate with Old French: planter

Cognate with Dutch: planten

Cognate with German: pflanzen

Cognate with Swedish: plantera

Cognate with Icelandic: planta

In summary

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”).
The factory and machinery senses comes from the Latin sense of "any vegetable production that serves to propagate the species," which refers to something that produces.

Sentences

Union member drive under way at Foster Farms plant .

People write messages on the dune with ice plant .

Each plant produces either functionally male flowers or functionally female flowers .