Plant

Part of speech: noun, verb

Pronunciation: /plænt/

Definitions

1. A living organism that typically grows in soil, has leaves and roots, and produces its own food through photosynthesis
2. A green organism that sustains itself via photosynthesis, typically rooted in soil and having stems and leaves, which can also refer to a place for industrial production
3. An organism characterized by its ability to photosynthesize, usually found in various environments with roots and leaves, or it may denote a facility for manufacturing goods

Etymology: The most surprising thing about "plant" is that the English word for a green living thing and the word for a factory share a single ancestor, the Latin "planta," which meant a sprout, shoot or cutting. A plant in the modern sense is the plant that grows from one, and the Latin word was used for a slip pushed into the soil to root. Old English took it as "plante," meaning a young tree or shrub newly set out, or a herb newly planted, which is why the word first carried the idea of something put into the ground by a gardener. The broader sense of any vegetable life, vegetation in general, came into English from Old French "plante." Over time the word also picked up the sense of a building or installation where machinery is set up, and that factory sense grows out of the Latin idea of anything that produces, a thing that propagates a species and makes more of itself. The verb comes from Middle English "planten," from Old English "plantian," which goes back to the Latin "plantāre," meaning to set in the ground. Its later shape was influenced by Old French "planter," and related verbs appear across the Germanic languages, such as German "pflanzen" and Swedish "plantera."

Synonyms: vegetation, flora, shrub

Antonyms: animal