place

Pronunciation

• IPA: /pleɪs/^[1][2]

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English place, borrowed from Old French place (“place, spot; open space”) and directly from Medieval Latin placea (“place, spot”),^[3][4] from Vulgar Latin *plattea,^[3][5] from Latin platēa (“courtyard, open space; broad street”),^[4][5][6] from Ancient Greek πλατεῖα (plateîa, “broad (way)”) (with ὁδός (hodós, “way”) understood), the feminine of πλατύς (platús, “broad”),^[4][7][8] from Proto-Indo-European *plat- (“to spread”).^[4][7] Old Northumbrian already had Old English plæce, an open place in a city, taken from Latin through the Bible, but Etymonline treats the modern word as a new borrowing,^[4][9] while the American Heritage and Random House dictionaries derive it from both the Old English and the French word.^[5][10] The same Latin source gave Italian piazza and Spanish plaza, doublets of place, and German Platz.^[4][11][8] The verb is from the noun.^[3][6]

Earliest recorded meaning

Space, room, area (probably before 1200, in Ancrene Riwle; c. 1200 in Etymonline).^[11][4]

Semantic evolution

Place replaced the Old English words stōw and stede, which survive in place-names such as Padstow and Wanstead.^[4][12][13] From the mid-13th century it meant a particular spot or site, from the early 14th century a position of rank or precedence, and since the late 14th century an inhabited place, a town or country,^[4] and in the 14th century also a passage in a book.^[14] A mansion with its grounds was called a place from the mid-14th century, and a building set apart for some purpose (place of worship) from the late 15th century.^[4] The sense of a job or appointment is by the 1550s.^[4] As the name of a square or a short street (Park Place) it dates from 1585 in the OED, the 1690s in Etymonline, after a French use.^[15][4] To take place replaced earlier have place, translating French avoir lieu.^[13] The verb, first recorded in 1442, meant “to put in a position”;^[3][16] “to find a home or job for” is from the 1590s,^[4] and the racing sense, to finish among the first three (in the United States, second), is attested by 1924.^[4] A place in the sun became associated with German nationalism after a Reichstag speech by von Bülow in 1897, though Pascal had used the idea in the 17th century.^[12] In South Africa place once meant a farm, a calque of Dutch plaats.^[17]

Timeline

• c. 1200 – space, room.^[3][4]
• mid-13th century – a particular spot or site.^[4]
• early 14th century – rank, position.^[4]
• mid-14th century – a mansion with its grounds.^[4]
• late 14th century – a town; a passage in a book.^[4]
• 1442 – verb, to put in a place.^[3][16]
• 1550s – a job or appointment.^[4]
• 1585 – a short street or square.^[15]
• 1590s – verb, to find a home or job for.^[4]
• 1868 – place name.^[11]
• 1924 – verb, to finish second or among the first three in a race.^[4]

Modern meaning

Noun

1. A particular position or area in space; a location.
2. A town, district or country.
3. A building or area used for a purpose: a place of worship.
4. (informal) A house or home: come round to my place.
5. A space or seat for a person: lay a place at the table; a vacancy: a place at university.
6. The proper or usual position of something: in place.
7. Position in a sequence or ranking, as in a race; one's social rank.
8. A job or position, and its duties.
9. A point reached in a book: lost my place.
10. (often capitalized) A short street or square: Grosvenor Place.

Verb

1. To put in a particular position; to set.
2. To find a home or job for.
3. To identify by context; to recall: couldn't place her face.
4. To rank or estimate: placed the value too high.
5. To give an order or bet: place an order.
6. (racing) To finish among the leaders, in the US specifically second.

Word family

• placeable
• placer
• placeless
• placelessly
• placement
• well-placed

Related words

• plaza
• piazza
• plaice
• plate
• flat
• plane

References

1. ^ Jones, Daniel (2011), Cambridge English Pronouncing Dictionary, 18th ed., ed. Peter Roach, Jane Setter and John Esling, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
2. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
3. ^ a b c d e f Barnhart, Robert K., ed. (1995), The Barnhart Concise Dictionary of Etymology, New York: HarperCollins
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
5. ^ a b c The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (1992), 3rd ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin
6. ^ a b Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (2000), 4th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin
8. ^ a b Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
9. ^ The Chambers Dictionary (2008), 11th ed., Edinburgh: Chambers Harrap
10. ^ Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary (1999), 2nd ed., New York: Random House
11. ^ a b c Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
12. ^ a b Cresswell, Julia (2021), Oxford Dictionary of Word Origins, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
13. ^ a b Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
14. ^ Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
15. ^ a b Simpson, J. A.; Weiner, E. S. C., eds. (1989), The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
16. ^ a b Kay, Christian; Roberts, Jane; Samuels, Michael; Wotherspoon, Irené, eds. (2009), Historical Thesaurus of the Oxford English Dictionary, Oxford: Oxford University Press; online edition (2024)
17. ^ A Dictionary of South African English on Historical Principles, Dictionary Unit for South African English, https://dsae.co.za