Category:Plane

Plane, n. Etym: [f., fr. L. platanus, gr. Place, and cf. Platane, Plantain the tree.] (bot.)

Defn: 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 Plane, a. Etym: [l. planus: cf. F. plan. See plan, a.]

Defn: 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.

Plane Plane, n. Etym: [f. plane, l. plana. See plane, v. & a.]

1. (geom.)

Defn: 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.)

Defn: 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.)

Defn: a block or plate having a perfectly flat surface, used as a standard of flatness; a surface plate.

4. (joinery)

Defn: 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. 5. Plane as in airplane - a vehicle which flies in the sky.

6. Plane as in inclined plane - a flat supporting surface tilted at an angle, with one end higher than the other, used as an aid for raising or lowering a load.

Plane Plane, v. t. [imp. & p. p. Planed; p. pr. & vb. n. Planing.] Etym: [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.