plantation

Etymology

Borrowed from Middle French plantation, from Latin plantātiō (“planting, transplanting”), from plantātus (“planted”), the perfect passive participle of plantāre, + action noun suffix -tiō.

noun

1. A large farm; estate or area of land designated for agricultural growth. Often includes housing for the owner and workers.
   Since the mid-1980s, when Indonesia first began to clear its bountiful forests on an industrial scale in favour of lucrative palm-oil plantations, “haze” has become an almost annual occurrence in South-East Asia. The cheapest way to clear logged woodland is to burn it, producing an acrid cloud of foul white smoke that, carried by the wind, can cover hundreds, or even thousands, of square miles. 2013-06-29, “Unspontaneous combustion”, in The Economist, volume 407, number 8842, page 29
2. An area where trees are planted, either for commercial purposes, or to adorn an estate.
3. (historical) The importation of large numbers of workers and soldiers to displace the local population, such as in medieval Ireland and in the Americas; colonization.
4. (historical) A colony established thus.
   Rhode Island and Providence Plantations (former official name of Rhode Island, United States)
   The King of Beni, the Lord of seven Kingdomes hath written to mee for Baptisme : but I cannot forsake these two Kings till I have other helpe. This Countrey is as healthfull as any I ever came in, and Sierra Leona would be a fit place for a plantation of the Society : for which King Philip wrote to the Catholike King, offering a place to erect a Fort, and commending the largenesse, wholsomnesse, and fertilitie of his Countrey. 1625, Samuel Purchas, “The Jesuites gleanings in Africa to Christian Religion, gathered out of their owne writings”, in Pvrchas His Pilgrimes, volume IX, London, →OCLC, page 263
   All theſe Bell-flowers do grow in our Gardens, where they are cheriſhed for the beautie of their flowers. The Couentry Bels doe not grow wilde in any of the parts about Couentry, as I am credibly informed by a faithfull Apothecary dwelling there, called Maſter Brian Ball, but are nouriſhed in Gardens with them, as they are in other places. The laſt groweth neere the riuer of Canada, where the French plantation in America is ſeated. 1629, John Parkinson, “The Garden of pleaſant Flowers”, in Paradisi in sole Paradisus Terrestris, London: Hvmfrey Lownes and Robert Yovng, →OCLC, page 357
   Capt. John Maſon, a young and enterpriſing man, had been in Newfoundland as governor of the plantation made there in 1611, and was now returned into England. He immediately joined Gorges in ſettling New England, and their joint enterpriſe ſucceeded. 1887 [June 14, 1871], Charles Wesley Tuttle, “Memoir of Capt. John Mason”, in Capt. John Mason, the Founder of New Hampshire, Boston: Prince Society, →OCLC, page 6