Planch"er, v. t. To form of planks. [Obs.] Golding.
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.
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.
Planch"ing (?), n. The laying of floors in a building; also, a floor of
boards or planks.
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 (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 (?), 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, 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.
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 reflection (Opt.), the
plane in which lie both the incident ray and the refracted or reflected
ray.
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.