PLANE

Any tree of the genus Platanus.

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

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.

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.

A block or plate having a perfectly flat surface, used as a standard of flatness; a surface plate.

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. Objective plane (Surv.), 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 (Geom.), a plane in which points infinitely distant are conceived as situated. -- Plane iron, the cutting chisel of a joiner's plane. -- Plane of polarization. (Opt.) See Polarization. -- Plane of projection. (a) The plane on which the projection is made, corresponding to the perspective plane in perspective; -- called also principal plane. (b) (Descriptive Geom.) One of the planes to which points are referred for the purpose of determining their relative position in space. -- Plane of refraction or reflection (Opt.), the plane in which lie both the incident ray and the refracted or reflected ray.

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.