Etymologically
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plana

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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]

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