Carpentry. any of various woodworking instruments for paring, truing, or smoothing, or for forming moldings, chamfers, rabbets, grooves, etc., by means of an inclined, adjustable blade moved along and against the piece being worked.
2.
a trowellike tool for smoothing the surface of clay in a brick mold.
–verb (used with object)
3.
to smooth or dress with or as if with a plane or a planer.
4.
to remove by or as if by means of a plane (usually fol. by away or off).
–verb (used without object)
5.
to work with a plane.
6.
to function as a plane.
[Origin: 1275–1325; (n.) ME (< MF) < LL plāna, deriv. of plānāre to smooth, itself deriv. of L plānusplain1; (v.) ME planen (< MF planer) < LL plānāre]
Geometry. a surface generated by a straight line moving at a constant velocity with respect to a fixed point.
3.
Fine Arts. an area of a two-dimensional surface having determinate extension and spatial direction or position: oblique plane; horizontal plane.
4.
a level of dignity, character, existence, development, or the like: a high moral plane.
5.
Aeronautics.
a.
an airplane or a hydroplane: to take a plane to Dallas.
b.
a thin, flat or curved, extended section of an airplane or a hydroplane, affording a supporting surface.
6.
Architecture. a longitudinal section through the axis of a column.
–adjective
7.
flat or level, as a surface.
8.
of or pertaining to planes or plane figures.
–verb (used without object)
9.
to glide or soar.
10.
(of a boat) to rise partly out of the water when moving at high speed.
11.
Informal. to fly or travel in an airplane: We'll drive to Detroit and plane to Los Angeles.
[Origin: 1400–50 for sense “to soar”; 1640–50 for n. and adj. senses; (n.) < L plānum flat surface (n. use of plānus flat); (adj.) < L plānus; first used to distinguish the geometrical senses formerly belonging to plain1; in def. 5, shortened form of airplane, aeroplane, or hydroplane; (v.) late ME planen (of a bird) to soar (cf. MF planer); akin to plain1]
plane, in mathematics, flat surface of infinite extent but no thickness. An example of a plane, or more exactly of a bounded portion of a plane, is the surface forming one face, or side, of a cube. A plane is determined, or defined, by any of the following: (1) three points not in a straight line; (2) a straight line and a point not on the line; (3) two intersecting lines; or (4) two parallel lines. Two straight lines in space do not usually lie in the same plane. For a given plane in space, a line can either lie outside and parallel to it, intersect the plane in a single point, or lie entirely in the plane; if more than one point of a straight line lies in the plane, then the entire line must lie in the plane.
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