plant

plant · noun, verb¹

1. Proto-Indo-European*pleth₂-?
2. Proto-Indo-European*pel-?
3. Proto-Indo-European*pleh₂-
4. Proto-Indo-European*pléh₂-n̥t-eh₂
5. Proto-Italic*plāntā?
6. Proto-Indo-European*pleh₂k-
7. Proto-Indo-European*pl̥h₂nk /*gteh₂
8. Proto-Italic*plānktā
9. Latinplanta
10. Proto-West Germanic*plantu
11. Old Englishplante
12. Middle Englishplante
13. English todayplant

From Middle English plante, from Old English plante (“young tree or shrub, herb newly planted”), from Proto-West Germanic *plantu, from Latin planta (“sprout, shoot, cutting”). Broader sense of "any vegetable life, vegetation generally" is from Old French plante. Doublet of clan (borrowed through Celtic languages) and planta (directly from Latin). The verb is from Middle English planten, from Old English plantian (“to plant”), from Latin plantāre, later influenced by Old French planter. Compare also Dutch planten (“to plant”), German pflanzen (“to plant”), Swedish plantera (“to plant”), Icelandic planta (“to plant”). The factory and machinery senses comes from the Latin sense of "any vegetable production that serves to propagate the species," which refers to something that produces.

Plant · proper noun²

An English and French surname, from the noun plant. Also compare Plantier.

Words from the same roots