Plank"-sheer` (?), n. (Shipbuilding) The course of plank laid
horizontally over the timberheads of a vessel's frame.
Plan"less (?), a. Having no plan.
Plan"ner (?), n. One who plans; a projector.
Pla"no- (?). See Plani-.
Plan"o*blast (?), n. [Gr. &?; to wander + -blast.] (Zoˆl.) Any
free-swimming gonophore of a hydroid; a hydroid medusa.
Pla"no-con"cave (?), a. [Plano- + concave.] Plane or flat on one side,
and concave on the other; as, a plano-concave lens. See Lens.
Pla"no-con"ic*al (?), a. [Plano- + conical.] Plane or flat on one side,
and conical on the other. Grew.
Pla"no-con"vex (?), a. [Plano- + convex.] Plane or flat on one side,
and convex on the other; as, a plano-convex lens. See Convex, and Lens.
Pla"no-hor`i*zon"tal (?), a. [Plano- + horizontal.] Having a level
horizontal surface or position. Lee.
Pla*nom"e*ter (?), n. [Plano- + -meter. Cf. Planimeter.] An instrument
for gauging or testing a plane surface. See Surface gauge, under
Surface.
Pla*nom"e*try (?), n. (Mech.) The art or process of producing or
gauging a plane surface.
Pla"no-or*bic"u*lar (?), a. [Plano- + orbicular.] Plane or flat on one
side, and spherical on the other.
||Pla*nor"bis (?), n. [NL., fr. L. planus flat + orbis a circle.]
||(Zoˆl.) Any fresh-water air-breathing mollusk belonging to Planorbis
||and other allied genera, having shells of a discoidal form.
Pla"no-su"bu*late (?), a. [Plano- + subulate.] Smooth and awl-shaped.
See Subulate.
Plant (?), n. [AS. plante, L. planta.] 1. A vegetable; an organized
living being, generally without feeling and voluntary motion, and
having, when complete, a root, stem, and leaves, though consisting
sometimes only of a single leafy expansion, or a series of cellules, or
even a single cellule.
Plants are divided by their structure and methods of reproduction into
two series, phÊnogamous or flowering plants, which have true flowers
and seeds, and cryptogamous or flowerless plants, which have no
flowers, and reproduce by minute one-celled spores. In both series are
minute and simple forms and others of great size and complexity.
As to their mode of nutrition, plants may be considered as
self-supporting and dependent. Self-supporting plants always contain
chlorophyll, and subsist on air and moisture and the matter dissolved
in moisture, and as a general rule they excrete oxygen, and use the
carbonic acid to combine with water and form the material for their
tissues. Dependent plants comprise all fungi and many flowering plants
of a parasitic or saprophytic nature. As a rule, they have no
chlorophyll, and subsist mainly or wholly on matter already organized,
thus utilizing carbon compounds already existing, and not excreting
oxygen. But there are plants which are partly dependent and partly
self-supporting.
The movements of climbing plants, of some insectivorous plants, of
leaves, stamens, or pistils in certain plants, and the ciliary motion
of zoˆspores, etc., may be considered a kind of voluntary motion.
2. A bush, or young tree; a sapling; hence, a stick or staff. "A plant
of stubborn oak." Dryden.
3. The sole of the foot. [R.] "Knotty legs and plants of clay." B.
Jonson.
4. (Com.) The whole machinery and apparatus employed in carrying on a
trade or mechanical business; also, sometimes including real estate,
and whatever represents investment of capital in the means of carrying
on a business, but not including material worked upon or finished
products; as, the plant of a foundry, a mill, or a railroad.