plank
pronunciation
How to pronounce plank in British English:
UK [plæŋk]
How to pronounce plank in American English:
US [plæŋk]
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- Noun:
- a stout length of sawn timber; made in a wide variety of sizes and used for many purposes
- an endorsed policy in the platform of a political party
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- Verb:
- cover with planks
- set (something or oneself) down with or as if with a noise
- cook and serve on a plank
Word Origin
- plank
- plank: [13] The etymological idea underlying plank may be ‘flatness’. It comes via planke, a northern dialect version of Old French planche (source of English planchette [19]), from late Latin planca ‘slab’, a derivative of the adjective plancus ‘flat’. This may have come from the same source as Greek pláx ‘flat surface’, ancestor of English placenta.=> planchette
- plank (n.)
- late 13c. (c. 1200 as a surname), from Old North French planke, variant of Old French planche "plank, slab, little wooden bridge" (12c.), from Late Latin planca "broad slab, board," probably from Latin plancus "flat, flat-footed," from PIE *plak- (1) "to be flat" (see placenta). Technically, timber sawed to measure 2 to 6 inches thick, 9 inches or more wide, and 8 feet or more long. Political sense of "item of a party platform" is U.S. coinage from 1848. To walk the plank, supposedly a pirate punishment, is first attested 1789 and most early references are to slave-traders disposing of excess human cargo in crossing the ocean.
Example
- 1. That plank was rotted by water .
- 2. Within five years , every plank on the deck will need replacing .
- 3. You can crumple a piece of paper , but not a plank of wood .
- 4. And everywhere , dust , blowing through the rough plank walls and the windows that didn 't fit right in their frames .
- 5. Inside the hut there are a big iron stove , wooden plank bed and box serving as a table .