plank

CEFRC1

/ˈplæŋk/

noun

Türkçe translations

Translating…

In plain English

01
noun
A long flat piece of wood.
02
noun
Extra detail
A political issue that is of concern to a faction or a party of the people and the political position that is taken on that issue.

Examples

The mutineer was made to walk the plank.
He hammered nails into the plank.

At a glance

Sits at C1 on the CEFR scale

Senses: 5
Parts of speech: 1
Citations: 5
Synonyms: 5

Also pronounced

[ˈpʰlæŋk]
[ˈpʰlaŋk]

Deep Dive

noun

Extra meanings

Physical exercise in which one holds a pushup position for a measured length of time.
A long, broad and thick piece of timber, as opposed to a board which is less thick.
That which supports or upholds.

More examples

In context

The plank froze to the ground.
Germanization was a central plank of German conservative thinking in the 19th and 20th centuries.
to plank a floor or a ship

Quick test

Two questions on this entry. Nothing is scored.

Question 1 · Quick check

The carpenter cut a long wooden blank to fix the broken floorboard.

Practise this properly in the app, where the word comes back before you forget it.

Nearby

Citations

The word in print, with each source given in full.

When Mr. Dole had been asked at the Republican convention about the same immigration amendment—one of the more conservative and sensitive planks—he did not oppose it, but said he would have to think long and hard before supporting it.
1996 August 24, Frank Bruni, “Dole Rejects a Party Plank”, in The New York Times, →ISSN
In the 1970s, a group of ideologically inspired economists captured the ears and minds of politicians. The central plank of their ‘neo-liberal’ model was that growth and development depended on market competitiveness; […]
2011, Guy Standing, chapter 1, in The Precariat, Bloomsbury Publishing, published 2016, →ISBN
His charity is a better plank than the faith of an intolerant and bitter-minded bigot.
1829, Robert Southey, Sir Thomas More; or, Colloquies on the Progress and Prospects of Society
The party, whose official name (Bündnis 90/Die Grünen) translates as Alliance '90/The Greens, grew out of an assortment of social protest movements of the 1980s that eventually unified. Their supporters marched for everything from ending nuclear power to enacting gay rights — while maintaining the key plank of environmental protection.
2025 February 24, Rina Goldenberg, “A guide to Germany's political parties”, in Deutsche Welle
Along the lower river, planked shad dinners (baked and broiled) were highly popular during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
1998, Richard Gerstell, American Shad in the Susquehanna River Basin, page 147

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Origin

noun

From Middle English plank, planke, borrowed from Old French planke, Old Northern French planque (compare French planche, from Old French planche), from Vulgar Latin planca, from palanca, from Latin phalanga. The Latin term derives from the Ancient Greek φάλαγξ (phálanx), so it is thus a doublet of phalange and phalanx. Compare also the doublets planch, planche, and plancha, borrowed later from Middle French, Modern French, and Spanish, respectively.

Deep Dive

noun

More examples

Related

Quick test

The carpenter cut a long wooden blank— to fix the broken floorboard.

Nearby

Origin

noun

The carpenter cut a long wooden blank to fix the broken floorboard.