plan

[[t]plæ̱n[/t]]

♦

plans, planning, planned

1) N-COUNT: usu with supp, also according to N A plan is a method of achieving something that you have worked out in detail beforehand.

The three leaders had worked out a peace plan...

The project is part of a United Nations plan for refugees.

...a detailed plan of action for restructuring the group...

He maintains that everything is going according to plan.

Syn:

strategy

2) VERB If you plan what you are going to do, you decide in detail what you are going to do, and you intend to do it.

[V wh] If you plan what you're going to eat, you reduce your chances of overeating...

[V to-inf] He planned to leave Baghdad on Monday...

[V for n] It would be difficult for schools to plan for the future...

[V n] I had been planning a trip to the West Coast...

[V-ed] A planned demonstration in the capital later today has been called off by its organisers.

3) N-PLURAL: usu with supp, oft N for n/-ing, N to-inf If you have plans, you are intending to do a particular thing.

`I'm sorry,' she said. `I have plans for tonight.'...

The Bonn government is making plans to evacuate more than two hundred of its citizens from the troubled area.

Syn:

arrangements

4) VERB When you plan something that you are going to make, build, or create, you decide what the main parts of it will be and do a drawing of how it should be made.

[V n] It is no use trying to plan an 18-hole golf course on a 120-acre site if you have to ruin the environment to do it.

Syn:

design, think out

5) N-COUNT: oft N of/for n A plan of something that is going to be built or made is a detailed diagram or drawing of it.

...when you have drawn a plan of the garden.

6) → See also planning

Phrasal Verbs:

- plan on

- plan out