plat1
/plat
/North American
noun
1A plot of land: they looked out over the plats of dark ground...
- The plat contained expansive grounds for parks, a railroad right-of-way, and railyards.
- Portland's historic Ladd's Addition neighborhood, for example, which was designed and built between 1905 and 1930, is one of the city's few plats with alleys.
- This is not a rich soil, as it is on the Sussex downlands, and I saw almost no crops at all, but plenty of grass plats, and fields of cattle.
1.1A map or plan of an area of land showing actual or proposed features.Looking at the strong outlines in the early city plats and plans, we too readily imagine Charleston girded with a stone citadel....
- Several early maps and plats richly amplify the author's argument.
- Most plat books present the information in map form.
verb [with object]
Plan out or make a map of (an area of land, especially a proposed site for construction): he bought back the site, platted it, and named it after his realtor...
- In 1882 Gibson obtained financing from railroad baron James J. Hill to acquire the land, and in 1883 he platted the town site on a north-south axis with meticulously laid out streets and avenues.
- In the same three-year period, nearly 400 town sites were platted.
- Although the town had been platted some five years earlier, in 1888 Great Falls was still a raw village where families who wanted fresh milk kept a cow and grazed her with the town herd.
Origin
Late Middle English: variant of the noun plot in the sense 'piece of ground'. The current verb sense dates from the early 18th century.
Rhymes
plat2
/plat/noun & verb
Variant spelling of plait.