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plant

Definition, pronunciation, etymology, and usage for the English word. Free spelling reference powered by Wiktionary.

Letters

5 characters

Language

English

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Detailed reference entry for the English word "plant", 5-letters, with pronunciation in International Phonetic Alphabet notation, etymology traced through Germanic and Romance roots where applicable, common misspelling variants catalogued from Hunspell error dictionaries, and usage frequency ranked against the top 100,000 English words in the Wordfreq corpus. PlainSpell covers English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German spelling with confusable-pair detection that highlights visually and phonetically similar words. This entry for "plant" includes synonyms, antonyms, homophones, and cross-language translation pointers sourced from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org extract. Whether you are verifying the correct spelling of "plant" for academic writing, checking homophone confusion, or exploring etymological origins, this page provides a citation-backed, free reference that requires no sign-up.

plant is aEnglishnoun. It means: An organism that is not an animal, especially an organism capable of photosynthesis. Typically a small or herbaceous organism of this kind, rather than a tree. Pronounced /plænt/. It ranks #1,374 in English word frequency. Often confused with play and plot.

Key facts for plant
PropertyValue
Headwordplant
LanguageEnglish
Part of speechNoun
IPA/plænt/
Letters5
Frequency rank#1,374
Misspellings tracked8
Confusable pairs20
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Frequency rank visualization

Position of plant in English word frequency (lower rank = more common)

Source: Wordfreq corpus

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

The English entry for plant is 5 letters long, classified as anoun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /plænt/. Corpus data places it at rank #1,374 in overall English word frequency, indicating it appears regularly in written and spoken text.Wiktionary records 19 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.

Our Hunspell-derived misspelling index lists 8 documented wrong-spelling variants for plant, with forms such as "lpant", "palnt", and "plannt". Each variant represents a distinct typo pattern that appears often enough in corpora to be worth flagging, typically a doubled-consonant error, a silent-letter drop, or a vowel substitution.It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "play", "plot", "punt", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.

Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle English plante, from Old English plante (“young tree or shrub, herb newly planted”), from Proto-West Germanic *plantu, from Latin planta (“sprout, shoot, cutting”). Broader sense of "any vegetable life, vegetation generally" is from Old French p… Root origin matters for spelling because borrowed morphemes (Greek, Latin, Old French, Old English) carry their source-language orthographic conventions into modern English, which is why historical etymology is often the cleanest predictor of whether a cluster like "-ough", "-eau", or "-tion" will appear. For readers arriving here from a spelling check, the authoritative guidance is: the correct English form is plant, spelled P-L-A-N-T, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.

Definition

  1. 1
    An organism that is not an animal, especially an organism capable of photosynthesis. Typically a small or herbaceous organism of this kind, rather than a tree.
  2. 2
    An organism of the kingdom Plantae. Now specifically, a living organism of the Embryophyta (land plants) or of the Chlorophyta (green algae), a eukaryote that includes double-membraned chloroplasts in its cells containing chlorophyll a and b, or any organism closely related to such an organism.
  3. 3
    Now specifically, a multicellular eukaryote that includes chloroplasts in its cells, which have a cell wall.
  4. 4
    Any creature that grows on soil or similar surfaces, including plants and fungi.
  5. 5
    A factory or other industrial or institutional building or facility.
  6. 6
    Machinery and other supplies and equipment, such as the kind used in heavy industry, light industry, earthmoving, or construction.
  7. 7
    The equipment and work animals of a drover or other rural worker travelling through the countryside.
  8. 8
    An object placed surreptitiously in order to cause suspicion to fall upon a person.
  9. 9
    A stash or cache of hidden goods.
  10. 10
    Anyone assigned to behave as a member of the public during a covert operation (as in a police investigation).
  11. 11
    A person, placed amongst an audience, whose role is to cause confusion, laughter etc.
  12. 12
    A play in which the cue ball knocks one (usually red) ball onto another, in order to pot the second; a set.
  13. 13
    A young tree; a sapling; hence, a stick or staff.
  14. 14
    The sole of the foot.
  15. 15
    A plan; a swindle; a trick.
  16. 16
    An oyster which has been bedded, in distinction from one of natural growth.
  17. 17
    A young oyster suitable for transplanting.
  18. 18
    A system, such as a motor, whose behaviour is being regulated or controlled by a control system.
  19. 19
    A position in the street to sell from; a pitch.

Etymology

From Middle English plante, from Old English plante (“young tree or shrub, herb newly planted”), from Proto-West Germanic *plantu, from Latin planta (“sprout, shoot, cutting”). Broader sense of "any vegetable life, vegetation generally" is from Old French plante. Doublet of clan (borrowed through Celtic languages) and planta (directly from Latin). The verb is from Middle English planten, from Old English plantian (“to plant”), from Latin plantāre, later influenced by Old French planter. Compare also Dutch planten (“to plant”), German pflanzen (“to plant”), Swedish plantera (“to plant”), Icelandic planta (“to plant”). The factory and machinery senses comes from the Latin sense of "any vegetable production that serves to propagate the species," which refers to something that produces.

Synonyms

This word in other languages

Common misspellings

Also misspelled as: lpant,palnt,plannt,plantt,platn,pllant,plnat,pplant

Misspelling Pattern Breakdown

Relative frequency of common misspelling types for plant

Misspelling Variants of "plant"

lpant5palnt5plannt6plantt6platn5pllant6plnat5pplant6
Misspelling Variants of "plant"

Frequency rank: #1,374 in English

Frequently Asked Questions

How do you spell "plant"?
"plant" is spelled P-L-A-N-T. The IPA pronunciation is /plænt/.
What does "plant" mean?
As a noun, "plant" means: An organism that is not an animal, especially an organism capable of photosynthesis. Typically a small or herbaceous organism of this kind, rather than a tree.
What words are commonly confused with "plant"?
"plant" is commonly confused with "play", "plot", "punt". These words look or sound similar but have different meanings. PlainSpell provides detailed comparisons for each pair.
How do you pronounce "plant"?
The IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) transcription for "plant" is /plænt/. Click the speaker icon on the pronunciation badge above to hear it spoken aloud where audio is available.
What is the origin of the word "plant"?
From Middle English plante, from Old English plante (“young tree or shrub, herb newly planted”), from Proto-West Germanic *plantu, from Latin planta (“sprout, shoot, cutting”). Broader sense of "any vegetable life, vegetation generally" is from Ol... See the full etymology section above for more details.
Is PlainSpell free to use?
Yes, PlainSpell is a completely free word reference. You can look up definitions, pronunciations, confusable pairs, homophones, and spelling corrections across 5 languages without any sign-up or subscription.

Nearby English words

Other entries that begin with the letter P in our English index:

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Data Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org), licensed under CC BY-SA & GFDL. Frequency data from Wordfreq. Misspellings derived from Hunspell dictionaries.