Plot

n. [A different orthography of plat.] 1. A small extent of ground; as, a garden plot. It was a chosen plot of fertile land. Spencer. When we mean to build, We first survey the plot. Shak.

2. A plantation laid out. [Obs.] Sidney.
3. (Surv.) A plan or draught of a field or piece of land, work, or the like, drawn to a scale.

n. [Abbreviated from complot, q. v.] 1. Any scheme, stratagem, or plan of a complicated nature, or consisting of many parts, adapted to the accomplishment of some purpose, usually a mischievous one. I have overheard a plot of death. Shak. O, think what anxious moments pass between The birth of plots and their last fatal periods! Addison. 2. A share in such a plot or scheme; a participation in any stratagem. And when Christ saith, Who marries the divorced commits adultery, it is to be understood, if he had any plot in the divorce. Milton.

3. Contrivance; deep reach of thought; ability to plot. [Obs.] “A man of much plot.” Denham.
4. A scheme or plan; method of procedure; design. “No other plot in their religion but to serve God and save their souls.” Bp. Taylor.

Winds still work, — it is their plot, — Be the season cold or hot. Herbert. 5. (Fictitious Literature.) The knot or intrigue; the story of a play, novel, romance, or poem, comprising a complication of incidents which are at last unfolded by unexpected means. If the plot or intrigue must be natural, and such as springs from the subject, the winding up of the plot must be a probable consequence of all that went before. Pope. Syn. — Intrigue; stratagem; conspiracy; cabal; combination; contrivance.

v. t. [imp. & p. p. PLOTTED; p. pr. & vb. n. PLOTTING.]

1. To plan; to devise; to contrive; as, to plot an unprofitable crime. “Plotting now the fall of others.” Milton.
2. To make a plan of; to delineate.

To plot forth, to draw away by a plot. [Obs.] The virtuous Marcello Is innocently plotted forth the room. J. Webster.