Noun

(en noun)

The overside or up-side of a flat object such as a table, or of a liquid.

*{{quote-book, year=1963, author=(Margery Allingham), title=(The China Governess)

, chapter=Foreword citation , passage=A very neat old woman, still in her good outdoor coat and best beehive hat, was sitting at a polished mahogany table on whose surface there were several scored scratches so deep that a triangular piece of the veneer had come cleanly away,

The outside hull of a tangible object.

*{{quote-magazine, date=2013-05-11, volume=407, issue=8835, page=80, magazine=(The Economist)

, title= The climate of Tibet: Pole-land , passage=Of all the transitions brought about on the Earth’s surface by temperature change, the melting of ice into water is the starkest. It is binary. And for the land beneath, the air above and the life around, it changes everything.}}

*{{quote-magazine, date=2013-07-20, volume=408, issue=8845, magazine=(The Economist)

, title= Welcome to the plastisphere , passage=[The researchers] noticed many of their pieces of [plastic marine] debris sported surface pits around two microns across.}}

(lb) Outward or external appearance.

:

*(Vicesimus Knox) (1752-1821)

*:Vain and weak understandings, which penetrate no deeper than the surface .

*

*:“A tight little craft,” was Austin’s invariable comment on the matron; and she looked it, always trim and trig and smooth of surface like a converted yacht cleared for action. ¶ Near her wandered her husband, orientally bland, invariably affable,.

The locus of an equation (especially one with exactly two degrees of freedom) in a more-than-two-dimensional space.

(lb) That part of the side which is terminated by the flank prolonged, and the angle of the nearest bastion.

:(Stocqueler)

Noun

(s)

An organism that is not an animal, especially an organism capable of photosynthesis. Typically a small or herbaceous organism of this kind, rather than a tree.

* {{quote-magazine, year=2013, month=May-June, author= Katrina G. Claw

, title= Rapid Evolution in Eggs and Sperm , volume=101, issue=3, page=217, magazine=(American Scientist) , passage=In plants , the ability to recognize self from nonself plays an important role in fertilization, because self-fertilization will result in less diverse offspring than fertilization with pollen from another individual. Many genes with reproductive roles also have antibacterial and immune functions, which indicate that the threat of microbial attack on the sperm or egg may be a major influence on rapid evolution during reproduction.}}

(botany) An organism of the kingdom Plantae''; now specifically, a living organism of the ''Embryophyta'' (land plants) or of the ''Chlorophyta'' (green algae), a eukaryote that includes double-membraned chloroplasts in its cells containing chlorophyll ''a'' and ''b , or any organism closely related to such an organism.

(ecology) Now specifically, a multicellular eukaryote that includes chloroplasts in its cells, which have a cell wall.

Any creature that grows on soil or similar surfaces, including plants and fungi.

A factory or other industrial or institutional building or facility.

An object placed surreptitiously in order to cause suspicion to fall upon a person.

Anyone assigned to behave as a member of the public during a covert operation (as in a police investigation).

A person, placed amongst an audience, whose role is to cause confusion, laughter etc.

(snooker) A play in which the cue ball knocks one (usually red) ball onto another, in order to pot the second; a set.

* 2008 , Phil Yates, The Times , April 28 2008:

O’Sullivan risked a plant that went badly astray, splitting the reds.

A large piece of machinery, such as the kind used in earthmoving or construction.

(obsolete) A young tree; a sapling; hence, a stick or staff.

* Dryden

a plant of stubborn oak

(obsolete) The sole of the foot.

* Ben Jonson

* knotty legs and plants of clay

(dated, slang) A plan; a swindle; a trick.

* Charles Dickens

It wasn't a bad plant , that of mine, on Fikey.

An oyster which has been bedded, in distinction from one of natural growth.

(US, dialect) A young oyster suitable for transplanting.