plan

Etymology

Borrowed from French plan (“a ground-plot of a building”), from plan (“flat”), a later form of the vernacular plain, from Latin planus (“flat, plane”); see plain, plane.

noun

1. A drawing showing technical details of a building, machine, etc., with unwanted details omitted, and often using symbols rather than detailed drawing to represent doors, valves, etc.
   The plans for many important buildings were once publicly available.
2. A set of intended actions, usually mutually related, through which one expects to achieve a goal.
   He didn't really have a plan; he had a goal and a habit of control.
   Life is what happens to you / While you're busy making other plans 1980, John Lennon (lyrics and music), “Beautiful Boy (Darling Boy)”, in Double Fantasy
3. A two-dimensional drawing of a building as seen from above with obscuring or irrelevant details such as roof removed, or of a floor of a building, revealing the internal layout; as distinct from the elevation.
   Seen in plan, the building had numerous passageways not apparent to visitors.
4. A method; a way of procedure; a custom.
   The simple plan, / That they should take who have the power, / And they should keep who can. 1815, William Wordsworth, Rob Roy's Grave
5. A subscription to a service.
   a phone plan
   an Internet plan

verb

1. (transitive) To design (a building, machine, etc.).
   The architect planned the building for the client.
2. (transitive) To create a plan for.
   They jointly planned the project in phases, with good detail for the first month.
3. (intransitive) To intend.
   He planned to go, but work intervened.
   It has jailed environmental activists and is planning to limit the power of judicial oversight by handing a state-approved body a monopoly over bringing environmental lawsuits. 2013-08-10, “Can China clean up fast enough?”, in The Economist, volume 408, number 8848
4. (intransitive) To make a plan.
   They planned for the worst, bringing lots of emergency supplies.