place

• pleace (some English dialects: 18th–19th centuries; Scots: until the 17th century)

From Middle English place, conflation of Old English plæse, plætse, plæċe (“place, an open space, street”) and Old French place (“place, an open space”), both from Latin platea (“plaza, wide street”), from Ancient Greek πλατεῖα (plateîa), shortening of πλατεῖα ὁδός (plateîa hodós, “broad way”), from Proto-Indo-European *plat- (“to spread”), extended form of *pelh₂- (“flat”). Displaced native Middle English lough, loogh, loȝ (“place, stead”), from Old English lōh (“place, stead”); Middle English stede (“place, location”), from Old English stede (“place, stead”); and Middle English stowe (“place”), from Old English stōw (“place, locality, site”). Compare also English pleck (“plot of ground”), West Frisian plak (“place, spot, location”), Dutch plek (“place, spot, patch”). Doublet of plaza.

• enPR: plās, IPA^(key): /pleɪs/

• Audio (US)

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• Audio (UK)

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• Rhymes: -eɪs
• Homophone: plaice

place (plural places)

1. (physical) An area; somewhere within an area.
   1. An open space, particularly a city square, market square, or courtyard.
   2. A group of houses.

      They live at Westminster Place.

      • (Can we date this quote?) William Shakespeare

        Ay, sir, the other squirrel was stolen from me by the hangman's boys in the market-place […]

   3. An inhabited area: a village, town, or city.
   4. Any area of the earth: a region.

      He is going back to his native place on vacation.

      • 1918, W. B. Maxwell, chapter 22, in The Mirror and the Lamp:

        From another point of view, it was a place without a soul. The well-to-do had hearts of stone; the rich were brutally bumptious; the Press, the Municipality, all the public men, were ridiculously, vaingloriously self-satisfied.

   5. The area one occupies, particularly somewhere to sit.

      We asked the restaurant to give us a table with three places.

   6. The area where one lives: one's home, formerly (chiefly) country estates and farms.

      Do you want to come over to my place later?

   7. An area of the skin.
   8. (euphemistic slang) An area to urinate and defecate: an outhouse or lavatory.
      • 1901, John Stephen Farmer & al., Slang and Its Analogues Past and Present, Vol. V, page 220:

        Place,... (2) a jakes, or house of ease.

      • 1951, William Styron, Lie Down in Darkness, Ch. ii, page 59:

        ‘I guess I'll take this opportunity to go to the place’...
        ‘She means the little girls room.’

   9. (obsolete) An area to fight: a battlefield or the contested ground in a battle.
2. A location or position in space.
   • (Can we date this quote?) William Shakespeare

     Here is the place appointed.

   • (Can we date this quote?) John Milton

     What place can be for us / Within heaven's bound?

   • 1913, Joseph C. Lincoln, chapter 5, in Mr. Pratt's Patients:

     When you're well enough off so's you don't have to fret about anything but your heft or your diseases you begin to get queer, I suppose. And the queerer the cure for those ailings the bigger the attraction. A place like the Right Livers' Rest was bound to draw freaks, same as molasses draws flies.

   • 1935, George Goodchild, chapter 5, in Death on the Centre Court:

     By one o'clock the place was choc-a-bloc. […] The restaurant was packed, and the promenade between the two main courts and the subsidiary courts was thronged with healthy-looking youngish people, drawn to the Mecca of tennis from all parts of the country.

3. A particular location in a book or document, particularly the current location of a reader.
4. (obsolete) A passage or extract from a book or document.
5. (obsolete, rhetoric) A topic.
6. A frame of mind.

   I'm in a strange place at the moment.

7. (chess, obsolete) A chess position; a square of the chessboard.
8. (social) A responsibility or position in an organization.
   1. A role or purpose; a station.

      It is really not my place to say what is right and wrong in this case.

      • (Can we date this quote?) Francis Bacon

        Men in great place are thrice servants.

      • (Can we date this quote?) William Shakespeare

        I know my place as I would they should do theirs.

      • 2013 August 10, Lexington, “Keeping the mighty honest”, in The Economist, volume 408, number 8848:

        The [Washington] Post's proprietor through those turbulent [Watergate] days, Katharine Graham, held a double place in Washington’s hierarchy: at once regal Georgetown hostess and scrappy newshound, ready to hold the establishment to account.

   2. The position of a contestant in a competition.

      We thought we would win but only ended up in fourth place.

   3. (horse-racing) The position of first, second, or third at the finish, especially the second position.

      to win a bet on a horse for place

   4. The position as a member of a sports team.

      He lost his place in the national team.

9. (obsolete) A fortified position: a fortress, citadel, or walled town.
10. Numerically, the column counting a certain quantity.

    three decimal places;  the hundreds place

11. Ordinal relation; position in the order of proceeding.

    That's what I said in the first place!

    • Mather Byles

      In the first place, I do not understand politics; in the second place, you all do, every man and mother's son of you; in the third place, you have politics all the week, pray let one day in the seven be devoted to religion […]

12. Reception; effect; implying the making room for.
    • Bible, John viii. 37

      My word hath no place in you.

• (market square): courtyard, piazza, plaza, square
• (somewhere to sit): seat
• (outhouse or lavatory): See Thesaurus:bathroom
• (location): location, position, situation, stead, stell, spot
• (frame of mind): frame of mind, mindset, mood

• Pijin: ples
• Tok Pisin: ples

place (third-person singular simple present places, present participle placing, simple past and past participle placed)

1. (transitive) To put (an object or person) in a specific location.
   • 1963, Margery Allingham, chapter 19, in The China Governess‎:

     Meanwhile Nanny Broome was recovering from her initial panic and seemed anxious to make up for any kudos she might have lost, by exerting her personality to the utmost. She took the policeman's helmet and placed it on a chair, and unfolded his tunic to shake it and fold it up again for him.

   • 2013 May-June, Charles T. Ambrose, “Alzheimer’s Disease”, in American Scientist, volume 101, number 3, page 200:

     Similar studies of rats have employed four different intracranial resorbable, slow sustained release systems— […]. Such a slow-release device containing angiogenic factors could be placed on the pia mater covering the cerebral cortex and tested in persons with senile dementia in long term studies.

   He placed the glass on the table.

2. (intransitive) To earn a given spot in a competition.

   The Cowboys placed third in the league.

   1. (intransitive, racing) To finish second, especially of horses or dogs.

      In the third race: Aces Up won, paying eight dollars; Blarney Stone placed, paying three dollars; and Cinnamon showed, paying five dollars.

3. (transitive) To remember where and when (an object or person) has been previously encountered.

   I've seen him before, but I can't quite place where.

4. (transitive, passive) To achieve (a certain position, often followed by an ordinal) as in a horse race.

   Run Ragged was placed fourth in the race.

5. (transitive) To sing (a note) with the correct pitch.
6. (transitive) To arrange for or to make (a bet).

   I placed ten dollars on the Lakers beating the Bulls.

7. (transitive) To recruit or match an appropriate person for a job.

   They phoned hoping to place her in the management team.

8. (sports, transitive) To place-kick (a goal).

• (to earn a given spot):
• (to put in a specific location): deposit, lay, lay down, put down
• (to remember where and when something or someone was previously encountered):
• (passive, to achieve a certain position): achieve, make
• (to sing (a note) with the correct pitch): reach
• (to arrange for, make (a bet)):
• (to recruit or match an appropriate person):

• Capel, Caple, capel, caple, clape

• placu (locative singular)

• IPA^(key): [ˈplat͡sɛ]
• Rhymes: -atsɛ
• Hyphenation: pla‧ce

place

1. vocative and locative singular of plac

• palce, palec

From Old French place, from Latin platea, from Ancient Greek πλατεῖα (plateîa).

• IPA^(key): /plas/

• audio

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place f (plural places)

1. place, square, plaza, piazza
2. place, space, room
3. place, seat

• Haitian Creole: laplas (with definite article la)
  • → English: laplas
• → Moroccan Arabic: بلاصة‎ (blaṣa)

place

1. first-person singular present indicative of placer
2. third-person singular present indicative of placer
3. first-person singular present subjunctive of placer
4. third-person singular present subjunctive of placer
5. second-person singular imperative of placer

• “place” in le Trésor de la langue française informatisé (The Digitized Treasury of the French Language).

• clape, Le Cap

place

1. present of placer
2. imperative of placer

placē

1. second-person singular present active imperative of placeō

• plache, plaise, plas

From Latin platea.

place f (oblique plural places, nominative singular place, nominative plural places)

1. place; location

• French: place
  • Haitian Creole: laplas (with definite article la)
    • → English: laplas
• → Irish: plás (through Anglo-Norman)
• → Luxembourgish: Plaz
• → Middle Dutch: plaetse
  • Dutch: plaats
  • Limburgish: plaotsj, plaatsj
• → Middle English: place (conflated with Old English plæse, plætse, plæċe)
  • English: place
    • Pijin: ples
    • Tok Pisin: ples
• → Moroccan Arabic: بلاصة‎ (blaṣa)
• Norman: plache (through Old Northern French plache)
• Walloon: plaece

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

• IPA^(key): /ˈpla.t͡sɛ/

place m inan

1. nominative, accusative, and vocative plural of plac

• IPA^(key): [ˈplat͡ʃe]

place

1. second-person singular imperative of plăcea
2. third-person singular present indicative of plăcea

   Îți place ție de el? ― Do you like him?

• (Castilian) IPA^(key): /ˈplaθe/
• (Latin America) IPA^(key): /ˈplase/

place

1. Third-person singular (él, ella, also used with usted^?) present indicative form of placer.
2. Informal second-person singular (tú) affirmative imperative form of placer.