plot

noun

• 1a plan made in secret by a group of people to do something illegal or harmful: [with infinitive]:there’s a plot to overthrow the government

• 2the main events of a play, novel, film, or similar work, devised and presented by the writer as an interrelated sequence: the plot consists almost entirely of a man and woman falling in love [with modifier]:he outlined his idea for a movie plot

• 3a small piece of ground marked out for a purpose such as building or gardening:a vegetable plot

• 4a graph showing the relation between two variables.
• chiefly US a diagram, chart, or map.

verb (plots, plotting, plotted)

• 1secretly make plans to carry out (an illegal or harmful action):the two men are serving sentences for plotting a bomb campaign [no object]:brother plots against brother

• 2devise the sequence of events in (a play, novel, film, or similar work): she would plot a chapter as she drove [no object]:in a crime story you have to plot carefully to achieve the surprise at the end

• 3mark (a route or position) on a chart:he started to plot lines of ancient sites
• mark out or allocate (points) on a graph: the dependent variable’s points are plotted on the Y axis
• make (a curve) by marking out a number of points on a graph: a cooling curve is plotted and the freezing point determined
• illustrate by use of a graph:it is possible to plot fairly closely the rate at which recruitment of girls increased