Plunket

Part of speech: verb, noun

Definitions

1. To deposit or drop something heavily or suddenly; to place money or resources into an account or fund; a surname of a British-New Zealand aristocratic family
2. To let fall with force or sound; to invest or contribute a sum of money; a proper noun identifying a notable family name
3. To set down abruptly or with a thud; to put forward a financial amount for a purpose; used as a family name from historical British-New Zealand nobility

Etymology: Before it named a shade, this word named a cloth, and no one can say for certain which came first. In Middle English, "plunket" was an adjective meaning grey, greyish blue or light blue, and a grey cloth shared the name. It is unclear whether the fabric gave its name to the colour or the colour to the fabric. The likeliest ancestry runs through Old French "plonquier" and "plonchier", meaning to cover with lead, and "plunkié" or "plonquié", meaning lead-coloured, all from Latin "plumbum", lead. That explains the grey sense. The word also looks very like "blanket", which once tempted writers to link it to Old French "blanchet", meaning whitish. That theory does not hold up well, because the most common early form was "blunket", and some early writers describe the colour as dark red or violet rather than white.

Synonyms: plunkett, drop, plop, thud