Plane /(?)/

Plane

Without elevations or depressions; even; level; flat; lying in, or constituting, a plane; as, a plane surface.

Plane angle: the angle included between two straight lines in a plane.
Plane chart: See under Chart and Curve.
Plane figure: a figure all points of which lie in the same plane. If bounded by straight lines it is a rectilinear plane figure, if by curved lines it is a curvilinear plane figure.
Plane geometry: that part of geometry which treats of the relations and properties of plane figures.
Plane problem: a problem which can be solved geometrically by the aid of the right line and circle only.
Plane sailing: the method of computing a ship's place and course on the supposition that the earth's surface is a plane.
Plane scale: a scale for the use of navigators, on which are graduated chords, sines, tangents, secants, rhumbs, geographical miles, etc.
Plane surveying: surveying in which the curvature of the earth is disregarded; ordinary field and topographical surveying of tracts of moderate extent.
Plane table: an instrument used for plotting the lines of a survey on paper in the field.
Plane trigonometry: the branch of trigonometry in which its principles are applied to plane triangles.

A surface, real or imaginary, in which, if any two points are taken, the straight line which joins them lies wholly in that surface; or a surface, any section of which by a like surface is a straight line; a surface without curvature. (Geom.)
An ideal surface, conceived as coinciding with, or containing, some designated astronomical line, circle, or other curve; as, the plane of an orbit; the plane of the ecliptic, or of the equator. (Astron.)
A block or plate having a perfectly flat surface, used as a standard of flatness; a surface plate. (Mech.)
A tool for smoothing boards or other surfaces of wood, for forming moldings, etc. It consists of a smooth-soled stock, usually of wood, from the under side or face of which projects slightly the steel cutting edge of a chisel, called the iron, which inclines backward, with an apperture in front for the escape of shavings; as, the jack plane; the smoothing plane; the molding plane, etc. (Joinery)

Objective plane: the horizontal plane upon which the object which is to be delineated, or whose place is to be determined, is supposed to stand.
Perspective plane: See Perspective.
Plane at infinity: a plane in which points infinitely distant are conceived as situated.
Plane iron: the cutting chisel of a joiner's plane.
Plane of polarization: See Polarization.
Plane of projection: The plane on which the projection is made, corresponding to the perspective plane in perspective; -- called also principal plane.
Plane of refraction: the plane in which lie both the incident ray and the refracted or reflected ray.

v. t.

imp. & p. p. Planed; p. pr. & vb. n. Planing

To make smooth; to level; to pare off the inequalities of the surface of, as of a board or other piece of wood, by the use of a plane; as, to plane a plank.
To efface or remove.
He planed away the names . . . written on his tables.
— Chaucer.
Figuratively, to make plain or smooth. [R.]
What student came but that you planed her path.
— Tennyson.

v. i.

Of a boat, to lift more or less out of the water while in motion, after the manner of a hydroplane; to hydroplane.