plank, planke

(Latin planca =a board, a plank; Fr. planche; Dut. plank; Sw. plank a; Ger. & Dan. planke.] 1. Lif .: A broad piece of sawed timber thicker than a board; spec if., a piece of timber between 11⁄2 and 4 inches thick, and more than 9 inches wide. "There is not a plank of the hull or the deck." Byron: Manfred, ii. 3. 2. Figuratively : *(1) Anything resembling a plank; a slab. "A monument of freestone, with a plank of marble thereon."-Wood: Athen . Oxon., vol. ii. (2) Anything serving as a support. "This is indeed the only plank we have to trust to."Sharp: Sermons , vol. i., ser. 8. (3) A principle or article of a political or other programme or platform. [PLATFORM.] To walk the plank : A mode of drowning their captives practiced by pirates, by whom they were compelled to walk along a plank laid acro the bulwark until they overbalanced it and fell into the water. "I got my back up at that and they walked the plank."Scribner's Magazine , Nov., 1878, p. 86. plank-bed, subst . A bed of boards, raised a few inches from the floor, on which British prisoners are compelled to sleep during short sentences, or the earlier stages of a long confinement. The practice was made uniform throughout Great Britain by the Prison Act of 1877. No mattre is allowed, but a thin pillow, and a bed-covering, consisting of two blankets and a rug, besides sheets, are i ued to all prisoners on plank-beds. plank-hook, s . A pole with an iron hook at the end, with which quarrymen, miners, and others shift their runs or wheeling-planks, as occasion requires. IMG:content-1171.png:[blocks in formation] IMG:content-1172.png:[blocks in formation] 2. Any contrivance in which plane surfaces movə upon one another to fulfill any of the uses of a celestial globe.