plait

 

A box plait with a piped edge at the top.

 

A person's hair in a long plait.

From Middle English pleit, from Anglo-Norman pleit (compare Old French ploit), from Latin plectō, which is akin to Old Norse flétta (Danish flette), Russian плести́ (plestí) and also to Old English fleohtan, which it displaced. Doublet of plight (“plait, fold”) and pleat.

• IPA^(key): /pleɪt/, /plæt/

  • Audio (Southern England):

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• Homophones: plate, plat
• Rhymes: -æt
• Rhymes: -eɪt

plait (plural plaits)

1. A flat fold; a doubling, as of cloth; a pleat.

   a box plait

   • 1705, J[oseph] Addison, Remarks on Several Parts of Italy, &c. in the Years 1701, 1702, 1703, London: […] Jacob Tonson, […], →OCLC:

     the plaits and foldings of the drapery

2. A braid, as of hair or straw; a plat.
   • 1913, D[avid] H[erbert] Lawrence, Sons and Lovers, London: Duckworth & Co. […], →OCLC:

     Only the hair as it arched so beautifully from her temples was mixed with silver, and the two simple plaits that lay on her shoulders were filigree of silver and brown.

• pleat

•   Plait in the Encyclopædia Britannica (11th edition, 1911)

plait (third-person singular simple present plaits, present participle plaiting, simple past and past participle plaited)

1. (transitive) To fold; to double in narrow folds; to pleat

   to plait a ruffle

2. (transitive) To interweave the strands or locks of; to braid

   to plait hair

   plaiting rope

   • 1900, Charles W. Chesnutt, chapter I, in The House Behind the Cedars:

     Her abundant hair, of a dark and glossy brown, was neatly plaited and coiled above an ivory column that rose straight from a pair of gently sloping shoulders, clearly outlined beneath the light muslin frock that covered them.

• Patil, Pilat, lapti

• Audio:

  (file)

plait

1. post-1990 spelling of plaît (third-person singular present indicative of plaire)

• pilât, pliât

From Old French plait, plet.

plait (plural plaits)

1. Alternative form of ple

From Latin placitum (“decree”).

plait oblique singular, m (oblique plural plaiz or plaitz, nominative singular plaiz or plaitz, nominative plural plait)

1. agreement
2. argument; dispute
3. court (of law)
4. plea; ask; demand

• plaidier

• French: plaid
• → Middle English: plait
  • English: plea
  • Scots: plaid

• Godefroy, Frédéric, Dictionnaire de l’ancienne langue française et de tous ses dialectes du IX^e au XV^e siècle (1881) (plait)
• plai on the Anglo-Norman On-Line Hub