Word definition: place

Etimology


From Middle English place, conflation of Old English plæse, plætse, plæċe (“place, an open space, street”) and Old French place (“place, an open space”), both from Latin platea (“plaza, wide street”), from Ancient Greek πλατεῖα (plateîa), shortening of πλατεῖα ὁδός (plateîa hodós, “broad way”), from Proto-Indo-European *pleth₂- (“to spread”), extended form of *pleh₂- (“flat”). Displaced native Old English stōw, stede, and -ern. Compare also English pleck (“plot of ground”), West Frisian plak (“place, spot, location”), Dutch plek (“place, spot, patch”). Doublet of piatza, piazza, and plaza.

noun


place (countable and uncountable, plural places)

(physical) An area; somewhere within an area.

A location or position in space.

A particular location in a book or document, particularly the current location of a reader.

(obsolete) A passage or extract from a book or document.

(obsolete, rhetoric) A topic.

A state of mind.

(chess, obsolete) A chess position; a square of the chessboard.

(social) A responsibility or position in an organization.

(obsolete) A fortified position: a fortress, citadel, or walled town.

Numerically, the column counting a certain quantity.

Ordinal relation; position in the order of proceeding.

Reception; effect; implying the making room for.

Examples


Ay, sir, the other squirrel was stolen from me by the hangman's boys in the market-place

They live at Westminster Place.

He is going back to his native place on vacation.

From another point of view, it was a place without a soul. The well-to-do had hearts of stone; the rich were brutally bumptious; the Press, the Municipality, all the public men, were ridiculously, vaingloriously self-satisfied.

We asked the restaurant to give us a table with three places.

My Lady Dedlock has been down at what she calls, in familiar conversation, her "place" in Lincolnshire.

Do you want to come over to my place later?

Which place hurts the most?

Place,... a jakes, or house of ease.

‘I guess I'll take this opportunity to go to the place’...‘She means the little girls room.’

In that same place thou hast appointed me,To-morrow truly will I meete with thee.

What place can be for us / Within heaven's bound?

When you're well enough off so's you don't have to fret about anything but your heft or your diseases you begin to get queer, I suppose. And the queerer the cure for those ailings the bigger the attraction. A place like the Right Livers' Rest was bound to draw freaks, same as molasses draws flies.

By one o'clock the place was choc-a-bloc. […] The restaurant was packed, and the promenade between the two main courts and the subsidiary courts was thronged with healthy-looking youngish people, drawn to the Mecca of tennis from all parts of the country.

I'm in a strange place at the moment.

It is really not my place to say what is right and wrong in this case.

I know my place as I would they should do theirs.

Escalus.Esc.I shall desire you, Sir, to giue me leaueTo haue free speech with you; and it concernes meTo looke into the bottome of my place :A powre I haue, but of what strength and nature,I am not yet instructed.

Men in great place are thrice servants.

The [Washington] Post's proprietor through those turbulent [Watergate] days, Katharine Graham, held a double place in Washington’s hierarchy: at once regal Georgetown hostess and scrappy newshound, ready to hold the establishment to account.

We thought we would win but only ended up in fourth place.

to win a bet on a horse for place

He lost his place in the national team.

three decimal places;  the hundreds place

That's what I said in the first place!

In the first place, I do not understand politics; in the second place, you all do, every man and mother's son of you; in the third place, you have politics all the week, pray let one day in the seven be devoted to religion […]

My word hath no place in you.

Related words


synonyms

(market square): courtyard, piazza, plaza, square

(somewhere to sit): seat

(outhouse or lavatory): See Thesaurus:bathroom

(location): location, position, situation, stead, stell, spot

(frame of mind): frame of mind, mindset, mood

hyponyms

abiding place

decimal place

dwelling place

hiding place

meeting place

passing place

purging place

resting place

workplace

Etimology


From Middle English placen, from the noun (see above).

verb


place (third-person singular simple present places, present participle placing, simple past and past participle placed)

(transitive) To put (someone or something) in a specific location.

(intransitive) To earn a given spot in a competition.

(transitive, passive voice) To rank at (a certain position, often followed by an ordinal) as in a horse race.

(transitive) To remember where and when (an object or person) has been previously encountered.

(transitive) To sing (a note) with the correct pitch.

(transitive) To arrange for or to make (a bet).

(transitive) To establish a call (connection by telephone or similar).

(transitive) To recruit or match an appropriate person for a job, or a home for an animal for adoption, etc.

(sports, transitive) To place-kick (a goal).

Examples


He placed the glass on the table.

His life vvas nigh vnto deaths dore yplaſte, / And thred-bare cote, and cobled ſhoes hee vvare, […]

Meanwhile Nanny Broome was recovering from her initial panic and seemed anxious to make up for any kudos she might have lost, by exerting her personality to the utmost. She took the policeman's helmet and placed it on a chair, and unfolded his tunic to shake it and fold it up again for him.

Similar studies of rats have employed four different intracranial resorbable, slow sustained release systems— […]. Such a slow-release device containing angiogenic factors could be placed on the pia mater covering the cerebral cortex and tested in persons with senile dementia in long term studies.

The Cowboys placed third in the league.

In the third race: Aces Up won, paying eight dollars; Blarney Stone placed, paying three dollars; and Cinnamon showed, paying five dollars.

Run Ragged was placed fourth in the race.

I've seen him before, but I can't quite place where.

I placed ten dollars on the Lakers beating the Bulls.

We were all focused intently on the triangular conference call speaker in the middle of the table. President Trump's communications team was placing a call to President Volodymyr Zelenksy of Ukraine, and we were here to listen.

They phoned hoping to place her in the management team.

Related words


synonyms

(to earn a given spot):

(to put in a specific location): deposit, lay, lay down, put down

(to remember where and when something or someone was previously encountered):

(passive, to achieve a certain position): achieve, make

(to sing (a note) with the correct pitch): reach

(to arrange for, make (a bet)):

(to recruit or match an appropriate person):

Data provided by Wiktionary