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plan.

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.

4 characters1 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

noun/plæn/General-American, Received-Pronunciation[pleən] ~ [plɛən]/plan/British, Northern-England, Scotland, Southern, Standard, Wales/plæːn/Australia
  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.
  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.

  5. A subscription to a service.

    a phone plan
    an Internet plan
Where this word comes from

Borrowed from French plan (“flat surface, ground plot, map”), from Latin plānus. Some sources also argue for influence or alteration of French plant, from plantar, from Latin plantāre (“set, fix in place”). Doublet of llano, piano, plane, and plain.

verb/plæn/General-American, Received-Pronunciation[pleən] ~ [plɛən]/plan/British, Northern-England, Scotland, Southern, Standard, Wales/plæːn/Australia
  1. To design (a building, machine, etc.).

    transitive
    The architect planned the building for the client.
  2. To create a plan for.

    transitive
    They jointly planned the project in phases, with good detail for the first month.
  3. To intend.

    intransitive
    He planned to go, but work intervened.
  4. To make a plan.

    intransitive
    They planned for the worst, bringing lots of emergency supplies.
Where this word comes from

Borrowed from French plan (“flat surface, ground plot, map”), from Latin plānus. Some sources also argue for influence or alteration of French plant, from plantar, from Latin plantāre (“set, fix in place”). Doublet of llano, piano, plane, and plain.

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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.