plant

Etymology

From Middle English plante, from Old English plante (“young tree or shrub, herb newly planted”), from Latin planta (“sprout, shoot, cutting”). Broader sense of "any vegetable life, vegetation generally" is from Old French plante. Doublet of clan, borrowed through Celtic languages. The verb is from Middle English planten, from Old English plantian (“to plant”), from Latin plantāre, later influenced by Old French planter. Compare also Dutch planten (“to plant”), German pflanzen (“to plant”), Swedish plantera (“to plant”), Icelandic planta (“to plant”).

noun

1. (botany) An organism that is not an animal, especially an organism capable of photosynthesis. Typically a small or herbaceous organism of this kind, rather than a tree.
   The garden had a couple of trees, and a cluster of colourful plants around the border.
   In plants, the ability to recognize self from nonself plays an important role in fertilization, because self-fertilization will result in less diverse offspring than fertilization with pollen from another individual. Many genes with reproductive roles also have antibacterial and immune functions, which indicate that the threat of microbial attack on the sperm or egg may be a major influence on rapid evolution during reproduction. 2013 May-June, Katrina G. Claw, “Rapid Evolution in Eggs and Sperm”, in American Scientist, volume 101, number 3, page 217
2. (botany) An organism of the kingdom Plantae; now specifically, a living organism of the Embryophyta (land plants) or of the Chlorophyta (green algae), a eukaryote that includes double-membraned chloroplasts in its cells containing chlorophyll a and b, or any organism closely related to such an organism.
3. (ecology) Now specifically, a multicellular eukaryote that includes chloroplasts in its cells, which have a cell wall.
4. (proscribed as biologically inaccurate) Any creature that grows on soil or similar surfaces, including plants and fungi.
5. A factory or other industrial or institutional building or facility.
6. An object placed surreptitiously in order to cause suspicion to fall upon a person.
   That gun's not mine! It's a plant! I've never seen it before!
7. Anyone assigned to behave as a member of the public during a covert operation (as in a police investigation).
8. A person, placed amongst an audience, whose role is to cause confusion, laughter etc.
9. (snooker) A play in which the cue ball knocks one (usually red) ball onto another, in order to pot the second; a set.
   O’Sullivan risked a plant that went badly astray, splitting the reds. April 28 2008, Phil Yates, The Times
10. (uncountable) Machinery, such as the kind used in earthmoving or construction.
11. (obsolete) A young tree; a sapling; hence, a stick or staff.
    Take, Shepherd, take a Plant of ſtubborn Oak; / And labour him with many a ſturdy ſtroke: / Or with hard Stones, demoliſh from afar / His haughty Creſt, the feat of all the War. 1694, “The Third Book of Virgil's Georgicks”, in John Dryden, transl., The Annual Miscellany, for the Year 1694, 2nd edition, London: Jacob Tonson, published 1708, page 185
12. (obsolete) The sole of the foot.
    Knotty legs, and plants of clay, / Seek for eaſe, or love delay. 1611, Ben Jonson, “Oberon, the Faery Prince”, in The Works of Ben Jonson, volume V, London: D. Midwinter et al., published 1756, page 384
13. (dated, slang) A plan; a swindle; a trick.
    It wasn’t a bad plant that of mine, on Fikey, the man accused of forging the Sou’ Westeru Railway debentures—it was only t’ other day—because the reason why? I’ll tell you. 1850-03-30, Charles Dickens, “A Detective Police Party”, in Household Words, volume 1, page 413
14. An oyster which has been bedded, in distinction from one of natural growth.
15. (US, dialect) A young oyster suitable for transplanting.
16. (control theory) The combination of process and actuator.

verb

1. (transitive, intransitive) To place (a seed or plant) in soil or other substrate in order that it may live and grow.
2. (transitive) To place (an object, or sometimes a person), often with the implication of intending deceit.
   That gun's not mine! It was planted there by the real murderer!
   Not only that, I thought, but cynics would now theorise that the interview piece was a PR exercise, a planted story designed as damage-limitation in the event that some probing journalist revealed all about the love nest. 1999, Terry Prone, The Skywriter, page 182
3. (transitive) To place or set something firmly or with conviction.
   Plant your feet firmly and give the rope a good tug.
   to plant cannon against a fort; to plant a flag; to plant one's feet on solid ground
   First Anelka curled a shot wide from just outside the box, then Lampard planted a header over the bar from Bosingwa's cross. January 15, 2011, Sam Sheringham, “Chelsea 2 - 0 Blackburn Rovers”, in BBC
4. (transitive) To place in the ground.
   God moves in a myſterious way, / His wonders to perform; / He plants his footſteps in the ſea, / And rides upon the ſtorm. 1780, William Cowper, “Light Shining out of Darkneſs”, in Twenty-ſix Letters on Religious Subjects[…] To which are added Hymns[…], 4th edition, page 252
   Sarah, she kissed each of her grandparents on the forehead. They were planted in a graveyard behind the church. 2007, Richard Laymon, Savage, page 118
5. (transitive) To furnish or supply with plants.
   to plant a garden, an orchard, or a forest
6. (transitive) To engender; to generate; to set the germ of.
7. (transitive) To furnish with a fixed and organized population; to settle; to establish.
   to plant a colony
8. (transitive) To introduce and establish the principles or seeds of.
   to plant Christianity among the heathen
9. (transitive) To set up; to install; to instate.