plash

Etymology 1

From Middle English plasch, plasche, from Old English plæsċ (“pool, puddle”), probably ultimately imitative. Cognate with Dutch plas (“pool, watering hole”). Related also to West Frisian plaskje (“to splash, splatter”), Dutch plassen (“to splash, splatter”), German platschen (“to splash”).

noun

1. (UK, dialectal) A small pool of standing water; a puddle.
   Hereof Aesop framed the Fable of the two Frogs that consulted together in time of drowth (when many plashes that they had repayred to were dry) what was to be done. 1597, Francis Bacon, Of the Coulers of Good and Evill, section 4
   Who were the strugglers, what war did they wage, / Whose savage trample thus could pad the dank / Soil to a plash? … 1855, Robert Browning, Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came, section XXII
2. A splash, or the sound made by a splash.
   Presently a gondola passed along the canal with its slow rhythmical plash, and as we listened we watched it in silence. 1888, Henry James, The Aspern Papers
3. A sudden downpour.
   … down burst torrents of thick rain and muddied us to the skin. The valley began to run in plashes of water, and Dakhil-Allah urged us across it quickly. … 1926, T.E. Lawrence, Seven Pillars of Wisdom, New York: Anchor, published 1991, page 206

verb

1. (intransitive) To splash.
2. (transitive) To cause a splash.
3. (transitive) To splash or sprinkle with colouring matter.
   to plash a wall in imitation of granite

Etymology 2

From Middle English *plasshen, *plaisshen, *plesshen, from Old French plaissier, plessier (“to bend”), from Latin plectere (“to plait, weave”). For the noun, compare Middle English plaisshes (“hedges forming an enclosure, palisade of hedges or wattles”). Compare also pleach.

noun

1. The branch of a tree partly cut or bent, and bound to, or intertwined with, other branches.

verb

1. (transitive) To cut partly, or to bend and intertwine the branches of.
   to plash a hedge
2. (transitive) To bend down a bough (in order to pick fruit from it).
   1679, John Bunyan, Pilgrim's Progress, Second Part: Some of the trees hung over the wall, and my brother did plash and eat.