plank

Meanings

1. 1
   verb

   cover with planks

   The streets were planked.

2. 2
   verb

   set something or oneself down with or as if with a noise

   They planked the money on the table.

3. 3
   noun

   A political issue that is of concern to a faction or a party of the people and the political position that is taken on that issue.

   Germanization was a central plank of German conservative thinking in the 19th and 20th centuries.

4. 4
   noun

   That which supports or upholds.

   His charity is a better plank than the faith of an intolerant and bitter-minded bigot.

Simplified etymology

Plank ultimately comes from Latin planca, meaning “a board or slab.” The British slang use for a foolish person arose in the early 1980s from the expression “thick as two short planks.”

From Middle English plank, planke, borrowed from Old French planke, Old Northern French planque (compare French planche, from Old French planche), from Vulgar Latin planca, from palanca, from Latin phalanga. The Latin term derives from the Ancient Greek φάλαγξ (phálanx), so it is thus a doublet of phalange and phalanx. Compare also the doublets planch and planche, and plancha, borrowed later from Middle French, Modern French, and Spanish, respectively.

Topics

External links

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