plana

Forms

plāna f (genitive plānae); first declension^[1]

Etymology

The TLL and Etymonline take it as a back-formation from Latin plānō (“to make level, smooth”), formed as occa (“harrow”) was from occō (“to harrow”).^[2][3] Wiktionary instead treats it as the feminine of plānus¹ (“flat, level”) used as a noun.^[1] Georges, Gaffiot and Lewis and Short likewise refer it to the verb.^[4][5][6]

The TLL lists its Romance descendants, among them Italian piana in northern Italian dialects, Sardinian prana in central Sardinian, Old French plaine and Catalan plana.^[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

Its only ancient example is in Arnobius, who speaks of images smoothed with planae;^[2][4][7] the TLL takes it as a carpenter's plane, though it wonders whether he meant only the blade of the tool.^[2]

Semantic evolution

In Medieval Latin the tool sense continued: Niermeyer gives an adze, and Du Cange a two-handled hewing tool named in the sign language of the monks of Hirsau, beside a tool with which parchment makers prepared their skins.^[8][9] Niermeyer also records the senses “plank” and “open land, as opposed to woodland”,^[8] and Du Cange has the noun for a plain in a charter of about 1215 and, apparently from Italian, for a beam.^[9] In music theory of the 11th century it is the name of a neume whose meaning is unknown.^[10]

English took the tool's name as plane in the mid-14th century, from Old French and directly from Late Latin.^[3]

Timeline

• 297–310 AD – Arnobius mentions images smoothed with planes.^[2][7]
• 11th century – A treatise on neumes names a neume plana.^[10]
• c. 1215 – A charter from Lorraine uses it for a plain.^[9]
• mid-14th century – English borrows the tool's name as plane.^[3]

Meanings

Noun

1. (Late Latin) A carpenter's plane, a tool for smoothing wood.^[2][4][11]
2. (Medieval Latin) An adze or hewing tool.^[8][9]
3. (Medieval Latin) An iron tool for preparing parchment.^[9]
4. (Medieval Latin) A plank; a beam.^[8][9]
5. (Medieval Latin) A plain, open land as opposed to woodland.^[8][9]
6. (Medieval Latin, music) A neume of uncertain meaning.^[10]

Related words

• plānus¹
• plānō
• English plane

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
3. ^ a b c Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b c Georges, Karl Ernst (1913–1918), Ausführliches lateinisch-deutsches Handwörterbuch, 8th ed., ed. Heinrich Georges, Hannover; Leipzig: Hahn
5. ^ Gaffiot, Félix (2016), Dictionnaire latin-français, new ed. by Gérard Gréco et al. (Gaffiot 2016), online ed.
6. ^ Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
7. ^ a b Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
8. ^ a b c d e Niermeyer, J. F. (1976), Mediae Latinitatis Lexicon Minus, Leiden: Brill
9. ^ a b c d e f g du Cange, Charles du Fresne, et al. (1883–1887), Glossarium mediae et infimae latinitatis, augmented ed. by Léopold Favre, Niort: L. Favre
10. ^ a b c Lexicon musicum Latinum medii aevi (1992–), Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften; online ed. Wörterbuchnetz
11. ^ Conte, Gian Biagio; Pianezzola, Emilio; Ranucci, Giuliano (2010), il Latino: Vocabolario della lingua latina, 3rd ed., Florence: Le Monnier