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plot

Syllabification: (plot)
Pronunciation: /plät/

Translate plot | into French | into German | into Italian | into Spanish
Definition of 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, movie, or similar work, devised and presented by the writer as an interrelated sequence.
  • 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.
  • a diagram, chart, or map.

verb (plots, plotting, plotted)

[with object]
  • 1secretly make plans to carry out (an illegal or harmful action):the two men are serving sentences for plotting a bomb campaign [no object]:Erica has been plotting against me all along
  • 2devise the sequence of events in (a play, novel, movie, or similar work).
  • 3mark (a route or position) on a chart:he started to plot lines of ancient sites
  • mark out or allocate (points) on a graph.
  • make (a curve) by marking out a number of points on a graph.
  • illustrate by use of a graph:it is possible to plot fairly closely the rate at which recruitment of girls increased

Phrases

lose the plot

informal lose one’s ability to understand or cope with what is happening:many people believe that he is feeling the strain or has lost the plot

the plot thickens

Derivatives

plotless

adjective

Origin:

late Old English (plot (sense 3 of the noun)), of unknown origin. The sense 'secret plan', dating from the late 16th century, is associated with Old French complot 'dense crowd, secret project', the same term being used occasionally in English from the mid 16th century Compare with plat1

plot in other Oxford dictionaries

Definition of plot in the British & World English dictionary