• (RP, GA) IPA: /plæt/

plat (plural plats)

1. A plot#Noun|plot of land#Noun|land; a lot.
   • 1624, Democritus Junior [pseudonym; Robert Burton], “Ayre Rectified. With a Digression of the Ayre.”, in The Anatomy of Melancholy: […], 2nd edition, Oxford, Oxfordshire: Printed by John Lichfield and James Short, for Henry Cripps, OCLC 54573970 ↗, partition 2, section 2, member 3, page 220 ↗:

     The best ſoyle commonly yeelds the worſt Ayre, a dry ſandy plat is fitteſt to build upon, and ſuch as is rather hilly then plaine, full of Downes, a Cotſwald county, as being moſt commodious for hawking, hunting, wood, waters, and all manner of pleaſures.

   • 1667, John Milton, “Book VIII ↗”, in Paradise Lost. A Poem Written in Ten Books, London: Printed [by Samuel Simmons], and are to be sold by Peter Parker […] [a]nd by Robert Boulter […] [a]nd Matthias Walker, […], OCLC 228722708 ↗; republished as Paradise Lost in Ten Books: The Text Exactly Reproduced from the First Edition of 1667: […], London: Basil Montagu Pickering […], 1873, OCLC 230729554 ↗, lines 455–457:

     Such pleaſure took the Serpent to behold / This Flourie Plat, the ſweet receſs of Eve / Thus earlie, thus alone; [...]

   • 1842, Alfred Tennyson, “The Blackbird”, in Poems. [...] In Two Volumes, volume I, London: Edward Moxon, […], OCLC 1008064829 ↗, stanza I, page 208 ↗:

     O Blackbird! sing me something well: / While all the neighbours shoot thee round, / I keep smooth plats of fruitful ground, / Where thou may’st warble, eat, and dwell.

2. A map#Noun|map showing the boundaries of real properties (delineating one or more plots of land), especially one that forms part of a legal document#Noun|document.
   • 1580, Richard Hakluyt, “Notes in Writing, besides More Priuie by Mouth, that were Giuen by M. Richard Hakluyt, […], Anno 1580: To M. Arthur Pet, and to M. Charles Iackman, Sent by the Merchants of the Moscouie Companie for the Discouerie of the Northeast Straight, […]”, in The Principall Navigations, Voiages, and Discoveries of the English Nation, […], imprinted at London: By George Bishop and Ralph Newberie, deputies to Christopher Barker, printer to the Queen's Most Excellent Majestie, published 1589, OCLC 753964576 ↗, page 460 ↗:

     For which cauſe I wiſh you to enter into conſideration of the matter, & to note all the Iſlands, and to ſet them downe in plat, to two ends: that is to ſay, That we may deuiſe to take the benefit by them, And alſo foreſee how by them the Sauages or ciuill Princes may in any ſort annoy us in our purpoſed trade that way.

3. (obsolete) A plot, a scheme#Noun|scheme.

plat (plats, present participle platting; past and past participle platted)

1. (transitive) To create a plat; to lay out property lots and streets; to map#Verb|map.

plat (plural plats)

1. A braid#Noun|braid; a plait#Noun|plait (of hair, straw, etc.).
   • 1609, William Shakespeare, “A Louers Complaint”, in Shake-speares Sonnets. Neuer before Imprinted‎, London: By G[eorge] Eld for T[homas] T[horpe] and are to be sold by William Aspley, OCLC 216596634 ↗:

     Her haire nor looſe nor ti'd in formall plat, / Proclaimd in her a careleſſe hand of pride; [...]

   • circa 1806 record in the journals of Lewis and Clark, recorded in The United States Exploration Anthology (2013, ISBN 1628409932):

     they also wear a cap or cup on the head formed of beargrass and cedar bark. the men also frequently attatch^[sic] some small ornament to a small plat of hair on the center of the crown of their heads.

   • 1830, The Ladies’ Museum, volume 31, page 59:

     [...] hair ornamented with a bandeau of gold on one side of the forehead, with a large pearl in the centre of the bandeau; on the opposite side is a plat of hair.

2. material#Noun|Material produce#Verb|produced by braid#Verb|braiding or interweave#Verb|interweaving, especially a material of interwoven#Adjective|interwoven straw from which straw hats are made.
   • 1824, New Material for Straw Plat, in The New England Farmer, volume 2, page 316:

     The large silver medal and twenty guineas, were this Session given to Miss Sophia Woodhouse, (Mrs. Wells,) of Weathersfield, in Connecticut, United States, for a new Material for Straw Plat.

   • 1829, On British Leghorn Plat for Hats and Bonnets, by Lady Harriet Bernard, in Gill’s Technological Repository, volume 4, page 381:

     Her Ladyship, in a letter to A. Aikin, Esq., [...] dated Castle Bernard, Ireland, Oct. 19, 1827, states that she has made some improvement in the mode of preparing the rye-straw, which is the material for plat employed in the school under her ladyship’s patronage.

   • 1842, The Penny Cyclopædia of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge, volume 23:

     Mr. Corston states that 781,605 straw hats had been imported from 1794 to 1803; and that in the last four years of that period 5281 lbs. of straw-plat, which was equal to 26,405 hats, had also been brought to this country.

   • 2000, Whittington Bernard Johnson, Race Relations in the Bahamas, 1784–1834:

     Eleuthera made palmetto plat for hats, arrowroot, and casaba starch.

   • 2002, John McAllister Ulrich, Signs of Their Times ISBN 0821414011, page 45

     The most detailed example of this particular mode of production occurs in the section of Cottage Economy devoted to the making of straw plat for hats, fashioned from raw material grown in England.

plat (plats, present participle platting; past and past participle platted)

1. (dated, except, regional England) To braid#Verb|braid, to plait#Verb|plait.
   • 1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), imprinted at London: By Robert Barker, […], OCLC 964384981 ↗, Matthew 27:29 ↗:

     And when they had platted a crowne of thornes, they put it upon his head, and a reed in his right hand: and they bowed the knee before him, and mocked him, ſaying, haile king of the Jewes.

   • 1844, Thomas Jefferson Jacobs, Scenes, Incidents, and Adventures in the Pacific Ocean, page 349:

     A customer hailed him; he placed the stool on the ground, and the customer seated himself upon it, while the barber shaved his face, platted his hair, and washed his hands [...]

plat

1. (obsolete, except, Scotland) flat#Adjective|Flat; level#Adjective|level; (by extension) frank, on the level.
   • [c. 1386–1390, John Gower, “Book I”, in Reinhold Pauli, editor, Confessio Amantis of John Gower: Edited and Collated with the Best Manuscripts, volume I (in Middle English), London: Bell and Daldy […], published 1857, OCLC 827099568 ↗, page 57 ↗:

     He layeth#Middle English|lith down his one ere al plat / Unto the grounde and halt it faſte [...]

     (please add an English translation of this quote)]

   • circa 1400 John Lydgate, poem, commented upon by Thomas Gray and printed in The Works of Thomas Gray, volume 5, page 305:

     But, crying mercy, the emperour lay plat on the ground.

   • 1889, Henry Morley, Early Prose Romances: The history of Reynard the Fox, page 149:

     But else, hold alway^[sic] your tail fast between your legs that he catch you not thereby; and hold down your ears lying plat after your head that he hold you not thereby; and see wisely to yourself.

   • 1891, Arthur Conan Doyle, The White Company:

     But now, youngster, I have answered you freely, and I trow it is time that you answered me. Let things be plat and plain between us. I am a man who shoots straight at his mark.

   • 2011, Gordon Kendall, MHRA Tudor & Stuart Translations, volume 7.II: Gavin Douglas, The Aenid (1513) ISBN 1907322493, page 638:

     The whirling wheel and speedy swift axle-tree / Smat down to ground, and on the earth lay plat.

plat

1. (obsolete, except, Scotland) Flatly, plainly.

   Synonyms: bluntly, directly, straightforwardly

   • [c. 1360s, Geffray Chaucer [i.e., Geoffrey Chaucer], “The Romaunt of the Rose”, in [William Thynne], editor, The Workes of Geffray Chaucer Newlye Printed, […] (in Middle English), [London]: Printed by [Richard Grafton for] Iohn Reynes […], published 1542, OCLC 932884868 ↗, folio clxv, verso ↗, column 1:

     But, ſir, ye lye, I tel you plat [...]

     But, sir, you lie, I tell you plainly [...]]

   • circa 1547‒1555 John Hooper, A Declaration of the Ten Commandments, published by the Parker Society in 1843:

     Fourth, see [that] thou hide nothing, nor dissemble, but speak plat, and plainly as much as thou knowest.

   • circa 1584‒1656 Joseph Hall:

     But single out, and say once plat and plain / That coy Matrona is a courtesan;