plat

Etymology 1

The noun is derived from Middle English plat, platte (“flat part of a sword; flat piece of ground, plot of ground”), probably a variant of Middle English plot, (modern English plot) and influenced by Middle English plat, plate (modern English plate) and Anglo-Norman, Middle French and Old French plat. See platy-, plaice, flat. The verb is derived from the noun.

noun

1. A plot of land; a lot.
   [W]e come to a spot which must have been a favorite resting-place for the poet, a low stone seat under a huge live oak, with a formal plat of grass and a stone seat opposite. 1913 April, Lela Angier Lenfest, “The Garden of ‘The Rosary’”, in Sunset: The Pacific Monthly, volume 30, number 4, San Francisco, Calif.: H. S. Crocker, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 353
2. A map showing the boundaries of real properties (delineating one or more plots of land), especially one that forms part of a legal document.
   A husband can not, without authority from his wife, plat her land, and the fact that the land which he assumes to plat was omitted by mistake from a previous plat made and acknowledged by her can make no difference. 1888, John W[orth] Kern, official reporter, “The City of Indianapolis v. Patterson”, in Reports of Cases Argued and Determined in the Supreme Court of Judicature of the State of Indiana,[…], volume 112, Indianapolis, Ind.: The Bowen-Merrill Co., law publishers, →OCLC, headnote
   The purpose of the preapplication conference is to allow the developer to meet informally with the planning board before going to the expense of preparing a formal plat. 1982, Robert N[eil] Corley, Peter J. Shedd, Charles F. Floyd, Real Estate and the Law, New York, N.Y.: Business Division, Random House, page 174; Charles F. Floyd, Marcus T. Allen, “Public Restrictions on Ownership”, in Real Estate Principles, 7th edition, Chicago, Ill.: Dearborn Real Estate Education, Dearborn Financial Publishing, 2002, page 75
   In 1877, a formal plat of the unincorporated village was published …. The publication of the plat, seven years after the village was laid out, likely reflected the beginning of the process toward formal incorporation of the municipality. 23 November 2005, Aharon N. Varady, “Bond Hill, Ohio, 1870–1903”, in Bond Hill: Origin and Transformation of a 19th Century Cincinnati Metro-Suburb, 10th edition, Cincinnati, Oh.: Henry Watkin Press & Cosmographic Design Initiates, page 76
3. (obsolete) A plot, a scheme.
   Besides some care is taken, so far as conveniently can be, both to give regard to the further spring of any matter tending to the entry or execution of any other or evil plat, and also upon the sight thereof, to have timely recourse to the King, to warn him and others to beware and provide for the seasonable prevention of the danger; … 9 July 1582, Robert Bowes, “CCXXV.—‘To Sir Francis Walsingham, ix July 1583.’ From the Letter-Book, p. 223.”, in [Joseph] Stevenson, editor, The Correspondence of Robert Bowes, of Aske, Esquire, the Ambassador of Queen Elizabeth in the Court of Scotland (The Publications of the Surtees Society), London: J[ohn] B[owyer] Nichols and Son,[…]; William Pickering,[…]; Edinburgh: Laing and Forbes, published 1842, →OCLC, page 488
   [S]o shall our plat in this one point be larger and much surmount that which [Richard] Stanihurst first tooke in hand by his exameters dactilicke and spondaicke in the translation of Virgills Eneidos, … 1589, George Puttenham, chapter XII, in The Arte of English Poesie:[…], London: Printed by Richard Field,[…], →OCLC; republished as Jos[eph] Haslewood, editor, The Arte of English Poesie, London: Printed by Harding and Wright,[…], for Robert Triphook,[…], 1811, →OCLC, book II (Of Proportion Poetical), page 90

verb

1. (transitive) To create a plat; to lay out property lots and streets; to map.
   A husband can not, without authority from his wife, plat her land, and the fact that the land which he assumes to plat was omitted by mistake from a previous plat made and acknowledged by her can make no difference. 1888, John W[orth] Kern, official reporter, “The City of Indianapolis v. Patterson”, in Reports of Cases Argued and Determined in the Supreme Court of Judicature of the State of Indiana,[…], volume 112, Indianapolis, Ind.: The Bowen-Merrill Co., law publishers, →OCLC, headnote
   He platted his land, extending the lateral lines of the lots south of Shore, or India street, indefinitely out into the river. 19 June 1902, Justice Horatio Rogers Jr., Edward C. Stiness, reporter, “Ellen Dawson et al. vs. Robert Broome”, in Reports of Cases Argued and Determined in the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court of Rhode Island, volume 24, Providence, R.I.: E. L. Freeman & Sons, printers to the state, published 1903, →OCLC, page 371
   … it may vacate a street where the original Owner has merely platted his land to conform to streets already located and established by the municipality, where no lot has been sold by such owner prior to such vacation. 6 January 1913, Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, “Tesson v. H. K. Porter Co.”, in The Atlantic Reporter (National Reporter System, State Series), permanent edition, volume 86, St. Paul, Minn.: West Pub. Co., →OCLC, page 278
   Vistas in San Francisco—a city whose real estate development platted out land geometrically and gridded over a series of hills—offer vertical, stunning viewscapes of architecture and the Bay, natural and built environments. 2005, Carolyn Cartier, “San Francisco and the Left Coast”, in Carolyn Cartier, Alan A. Lew, editors, Seductions of Place: Geographical Perspectives on Globalization and Touristed Landscapes (Critical Geographies; 19), Abingdon, Oxfordshire, New York, N.Y.: Routledge, page 138

Etymology 2

The noun is a variant of plait. The verb is from Middle English platte, English plat, respectively archaic past and past participle forms of English pleat (a variant of plait), Middle English platten (“to braid, weave; plait; to fold”).

noun

1. A braid; a plait (of hair, straw, etc.).
   they also wear a cap or cup on the head formed of beargrass and cedar bark. the men also frequently attatch some small ornament to a small plat of hair on the center of the crown of their heads. c. 1806, record in the journals of Lewis and Clark, recorded in The United States Exploration Anthology (2013)
   […] hair ornamented with a bandeau of gold on one side of the forehead, with a large pearl in the centre of the bandeau; on the opposite side is a plat of hair. 1830, The Ladies’ Museum, volume 31, page 59
2. Material produced by braiding or interweaving, especially a material of interwoven straw from which straw hats are made.
   The large silver medal and twenty guineas, were this Session given to Miss Sophia Woodhouse, (Mrs. Wells,) of Weathersfield, in Connecticut, United States, for a new Material for Straw Plat. 1824, “New Material for Straw Plat”, in The New England Farmer, volume 2, page 316
   Her Ladyship, in a letter to A. Aikin, Esq., […] dated Castle Bernard, Ireland, Oct. 19, 1827, states that she has made some improvement in the mode of preparing the rye-straw, which is the material for plat employed in the school under her ladyship’s patronage. 1829, “On British Leghorn Plat for Hats and Bonnets, by Lady Harriet Bernard”, in Gill’s Technological Repository, volume 4, page 381
   Mr. Corston states that 781,605 straw hats had been imported from 1794 to 1803; and that in the last four years of that period 5281 lbs. of straw-plat, which was equal to 26,405 hats, had also been brought to this country. 1842, The Penny Cyclopædia of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge, volume 23
   Eleuthera made palmetto plat for hats, arrowroot, and casaba starch. 2000, Whittington Bernard Johnson, Race Relations in the Bahamas, 1784–1834
   The most detailed example of this particular mode of production occurs in the section of Cottage Economy devoted to the making of straw plat for hats, fashioned from raw material grown in England. 2002, John McAllister Ulrich, Signs of Their Times, page 45

verb

1. (dated except regional England) To braid, to plait.
   A customer hailed him; he placed the stool on the ground, and the customer seated himself upon it, while the barber shaved his face, platted his hair, and washed his hands … 1844, Thomas Jefferson Jacobs, Scenes, Incidents, and Adventures in the Pacific Ocean, page 349
   She platted her hair in segments the night before, so that today she’d have a rippling effect through her hair. 2006, Elka Paquette, Taboo, page 100

Etymology 3

From Middle English plat, plate, platte (“flat; smooth; blunt, plain”), from Anglo-Norman, Middle French, and Old French plat (“(adjective) flat, level; calm; blunt, plain; (adverb) in a flat position; directly, straight; bluntly, plainly”), from Vulgar Latin *plattus (“flat; smooth”); further etymology uncertain, but possibly from Ancient Greek πλατύς (platús, “flat; wide”), ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *pleth₂- (“flat”). The English word is cognate with French plat, Italian piatto, Middle Dutch plat (modern Dutch plat (“flat”)), Middle High German blat, plat, Middle Low German plat (modern German platt (“flat”)), Old Danish plat (modern Danish plat), Old Occitan plat (modern Occitan plat), Old Swedish plat (modern Swedish platt); and is a doublet of flat.

adj

1. (obsolete except Scotland) Flat; level; (by extension) frank, on the level.
   But else, hold alway your tail fast between your legs that he catch you not thereby; and hold down your ears lying plat after your head that he hold you not thereby; and see wisely to yourself. 1889, Henry Morley, Early Prose Romances: The history of Reynard the Fox, page 149
   But now, youngster, I have answered you freely, and I trow it is time that you answered me. Let things be plat and plain between us. I am a man who shoots straight at his mark. 1891, Arthur Conan Doyle, The White Company
   The whirling wheel and speedy swift axle-tree / Smat down to ground, and on the earth lay plat. 2011, Gordon Kendall, MHRA Tudor & Stuart Translations, volume 7.II: Gavin Douglas, The Aenid (1513) →ISBN, page 638

adv

1. (obsolete except Scotland) Flatly, plainly.
   Fourth, see [that] thou hide nothing, nor dissemble, but speak plat, and plainly as much as thou knowest. c. 1547‒1555, John Hooper, A Declaration of the Ten Commandments, published by the Parker Society in 1843
   But single out, and say once plat and plain / That coy Matrona is a courtesan; c. 1584‒1656, Joseph Hall