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planking

[plang-king]

Origin

noun

planks collectively, as in a floor.

the act of laying or covering with planks.

Origin:
1485–95; plank + -ing¹

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Planking is always a great word to know.

So is zedonk. Does it mean:

a stew of meat, vegetables, potatoes, etc.

the offspring of a zebra and a donkey.

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Dictionary.com Unabridged

noun

a long, flat piece of timber, thicker than a board.

lumber in such pieces; planking.

something to stand on or to cling to for support.

any one of the stated principles or objectives comprising the political platform of a party campaigning for election: They fought for a plank supporting a nuclear freeze.

verb (used with object)

to lay, cover, or furnish with planks.

to bake or broil and serve (steak, fish, chicken, etc.) on a wooden board.

plunk (def. 2).

Idiom

walk the plank,

to be forced, as by pirates, to walk to one's death by stepping off a plank extending from the ship's side over the water.

to relinquish something, as a position, office, etc., under compulsion: We suspect that the new vice-president walked the plank because of a personality clash.

Origin:
1275–1325; Middle English planke < Old North French < Latin planca board, plank. See planch

Related forms

plank·less, adjective

plank·like, adjective

un·planked, adjective

Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2012.
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Link To planking

Collins

World English Dictionary

planking (ˈplæŋkɪŋ)

—n
1.	a number of planks
2.	the act of covering or furnishing with planks

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 10th Edition
2009 © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins
Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009
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Etymonline

Word Origin & History

plank

1206, from O.N.Fr. planke (O.Fr. planche) "plank, slab, little wooden bridge," from L.L. planca "broad slab, board," related to phalanga "pole to carry burdens," from Gk. phalange (see phalanx). Technically, timber sawed to measure 2 to 6 inches thick, 9 inches or more wide,

EXPAND

and 8 feet or more long. Political sense of "item of a party platform" is U.S. coinage from 1848. To walk the plank, supposedly a pirate punishment, is first attested 1822 in Scott.

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double frame harping laid deck landing strake margin line

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"That which we kept off, and toward which the waves were driving, was as dreary and harborless a shore as you can conceive. For half a dozen rods in width it was a perfect maze of submerged trees, all dead and bare and bleaching, some standing half their original height, others prostrate, and criss-across, above or beneath the surface, and mingled with them were loose trees and limbs and stumps, beating about. Imagine the wharves of the largest city in the world, decayed, and the earth and planking washed away, leaving the spiles standing in loose order, but often of twice the ordinary height, and mingled with and beating against them the wreck of ten thousand navies, all their spars and timbers, while there rises from the water's edge the densest and grimmest wilderness, ready to supply more material when the former fails, and you may get a faint idea of that coast. We could not have landed if we would."

-Henry David Thoreau

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planking

plank·ing

plank