Plan vs Actual - What's the difference?
plan | actual |
A drawing showing technical details of a building, machine, etc., with unwanted details omitted, and often using symbols rather than detailed drawing to represent doors, valves, etc.
A set of intended actions, usually mutually related, through which one expects to achieve a goal.
A two-dimensional drawing of a building as seen from above with obscuring or irrelevant details such as roof removed, or of a floor of a building, revealing the internal layout; as distinct from the elevation.
A method; a way of procedure; a custom.
* Wordsworth
To design (a building, machine, etc.).
To create a plan for.
To intend.
* {{quote-magazine, date=2013-08-10, volume=408, issue=8848, magazine=(The Economist)
, title= See plan on.
To make a plan.
Existing in act or reality, not just potentially; really acted or acting; occurring in fact.
*{{quote-magazine, date=2013-06-07, author=(Gary Younge)
, volume=188, issue=26, page=18, magazine=(The Guardian Weekly)
, title= Factual, real, not just apparent or even false.
*{{quote-book, year=1963, author=(Margery Allingham), title=(The China Governess)
, chapter=1 (dated) In action at the time being; now existing; current.
(obsolete) Active, not passive.
* Shakespeare
* Jeremy Taylor
Used to emphasise a noun or verb, whether something is real or metaphorical.
*{{quote-magazine, date=2013-08-03, volume=408, issue=8847, magazine=(The Economist)
, title= An actual, real one; notably:
# (finance) Something actually received; real receipts, as distinct from estimated ones.
# (military) A radio callsign modifier that specifies the commanding officer of the unit or asset denoted by the remainder of the callsign and not the officer's assistant or other designee.
As nouns the difference between plan and actual
is that plan is a tablet (for writing and erasing) while actual is an actual, real one; notably:.As an adjective actual is
existing in act or reality, not just potentially; really acted or acting; occurring in fact.plan
English
Noun
(en noun)- The plans for many important buildings were once publicly available.
- He didn't really have a plan ; he had a goal and a habit of control.
- Seen in plan , the building had numerous passageways not apparent to visitors.
- The simple plan , / That they should take who have the power, / And they should keep who can.
Usage notes
* A plan ("set of intended actions") can be developed, executed, implemented, ignored, abandoned, scrapped, changed, etc.Synonyms
* (drawing of a building from above): floor planDerived terms
* battleplan * floor plan * business plan * development plan * marketing plan * masterplan * game plan * contingency plan * action plan * escalation plan * lesson plan * plan A * plan B * price plan * rate planVerb
(plann)Can China clean up fast enough?, passage=It has jailed environmental activists and is planning to limit the power of judicial oversight by handing a state-approved body a monopoly over bringing environmental lawsuits.}}
Usage notes
* This is a catenative verb that takes the to infinitive . SeeDerived terms
* planner * plan on * plan outStatistics
*External links
* * English control verbs ----actual
English
Adjective
(-)Hypocrisy lies at heart of Manning prosecution, passage=They also exposed the blatant discrepancy between the west's professed values and actual foreign policies.}}
citation, passage=The original family who had begun to build a palace to rival Nonesuch had died out before they had put up little more than the gateway, so that the actual structure which had come down to posterity retained the secret magic of a promise rather than the overpowering splendour of a great architectural achievement.}}
- her walking and other actual performances.
- Let your holy and pious intention be actual ; that is given to God.
The machine of a new soul, passage=The yawning gap in neuroscientists’ understanding of their topic is in the intermediate scale of the brain’s anatomy. Science has a passable knowledge of how individual nerve cells, known as neurons, work. It also knows which visible lobes and ganglia of the brain do what. But how the neurons are organised in these lobes and ganglia remains obscure. Yet this is the level of organisation that does the actual thinking—and is, presumably, the seat of consciousness.}}
Usage notes
* In some foreign languages the counterpart of (actual) means “current”. This meaning also occurs in English written by non-native speakers, but is nonstandard English. * The phrase (term) is criticised by many as redundant., page 3Synonyms
* (existing in act or reality) real * (in action at the time being) present * positiveAntonyms
* (existing in act or reality) potential, possible, virtual, speculative, conceivable, theoretical, nominal, hypothetical, estimated * (in action at the time being) future, pastDerived terms
* actualism * actualist * actuality * actualize * actualization * actuallyNoun
(en noun)- "Bravo Six Actual , Snakebite leader" (The person with the callsign "Snakebite leader" requests to speak to the commander of company Bravo and not the radio operator.)