Emily Dickinson Lexicon

PLUMB'ER-Y, n. [plum'mery.]

1. Works in lead; manufactures of lead; the place where lead is wrought.
2. The art of casting and working lead, or of making sheets and pipes of lead.

PLUM-BIF'ER-OUS, a. [L. plumbum, lead, and fero, to produce.]

Producing lead. – Kirwan.

PLUMB'-LINE, n. [plum'-line.]

A line perpendicular to the plane of the horizon; or a line directed to the center of gravity in the earth.

PLUM'-CAKE, n.

Cake containing raisins, currants, or other fruit.

PLUME, n. [Fr. plume; L. and Sp. pluma; It. piuma; W. plu, pluv.]

1. The feather of a fowl, particularly a large feather. – Shak.
2. A feather worn as an ornament, particularly an ostrich's feather. And his high plume that nodded o'er his head. – Dryden.
3. Pride; towering mien. – Shak.
4. Token of honor; prize of contest. Ambitious to win from me some plume. – Milton.

PLUME, or PLU'MULE, n.

In botany, the ascending scaly part of the corculum or heart of a seed; the scaly part of the embryo plant within the seed, which rises and becomes the stem or body. It extends itself into the cavity of the lobes, and is terminated by a small branch resembling a feather, from which it derives its name. – Martyn. Milne.

PLUME, v.t.

1. To pick and adjust plumes or feathers. Swans must be kept in some inclosed pond, where they may have room to come on shore and plume themselves. – Mortimer.
2. To strip of feathers. Carnivorous animals will not take pains to plume the birds they devour.
3. To strip; to peel. – Bacon.
4. To set as a plume; to set erect. His stature reach'd the sky, and on his crest / Sat honor plum'd. – Milton.
5. To adorn with feathers or plumes. Shak.
6. To pride; to value; to boast. He plumes himself on his skill or his prowess.

PLUME-AL'UM, n.

A kind of asbestus. – Wilkins.

PLUME'LESS, a.

Without feathers or plumes. – Eusden.

PLUME'LET, n.

1. A small plume. – Kirby.
2. A little plumule.

PLU-MIG'ER-OUS, a. [L. pluma, a feather, and gero, to wear.]

Feathered; having feathers. – Dict.

PLU'MI-PED, a. [infra.]

Having feet covered with feathers.

PLU'MI-PED, n. [L. pluma, feather, and pes, foot.]

A fowl that has feathers on its feet. – Dict.

PLUM'MET, n. [Sp. plomada. See Plumb.]

1. A long piece of lead attached to a line, used in sounding the depth of water.
2. An instrument used by carpenters, masons, &c., in adjusting erections to a perpendicular line, and with a square to determine a horizontal line. It consists of a piece of lead fastened to a line.
3. Any weight. – Wilkins.
4. A piece of lead used by schoolboys to rule their paper for writing.

PLUM'MING, n.

Among miners, the operation of finding by means of a mine dial the place where to sink an air shaft, or to bring an adit to the work, or to find which way the lode inclines. – Encyc.

PLU'MOSE, or PLU'MOUS, a. [L. plumosus.]

1. Feathery; resembling feathers.
2. In botany, a plumose bristle is one that has hairs growing on the sides of the main bristle. A plumose pappus is composed of feathery hairs. – Martyn.

PLU-MOS'I-TY, n.

The state of having feathers.

PLUMP, a. [Dan. plomp, plump, blunt, unhandy, clownish, rude; Sw. plump; D. plomp; G. plump. The primary sense seems to be thick, as if allied to lump and clump. See the noun.]

1. Full; swelled with fat or flesh to the full size; fat; having a full skin; round; as, a plump boy; a plump habit of body. The famish'd crow grows plump and round. – Swift.
2. Full; blunt; unreserved; unqualified; as, a plump lie.

PLUMP, adv.

Suddenly; heavily; at once, or with a sudden heavy fall. – B. Jonson.

PLUMP, n.

A knot; a cluster; a clump; a number of things closely united or standing together; as, a plump of trees; a plump of fowls; a plump of horsemen. – Bacon. Hayward. Dryden. [This word is not now used in this sense, but the use of it formerly, is good evidence that plump is clump, with a different prefix, and both are radically one word with lump. Plumb, L. plumbum, is the same word, a lump or mass.]

PLUMP, v.i. [from the noun; G. plumpen, D. plompen, Dan. plomper, to plunge.]

1. To plunge or fall like a heavy mass or lump of dead matter; to fall suddenly or at once.
2. To enlarge to fullness; to be swelled. – Ainsworth.

PLUMP, v.t. [from the adjective.]

To swell; to extend to fullness; to dilate; to fatten. The particles of air expanding themselves, plump out the sides of the bladder. – Boyle. A wedding at our house will plump me up with good cheer. [Colloquial.] – L'Estrange.

PLUMP'ED, pp.

Swelled; extended in fullness.

PLUMP'ER, n.

1. Something carried in the mouth to dilate the cheeks; any thing intended to swell out something else. – Swift.
2. A full unqualified lie. [In vulgar use.]

PLUM-PIE', n.

A pie containing plums.