plash

English

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /plæʃ/
• Rhymes: -æʃ

  • Audio (Southern England):

    (file)

Etymology 1

From Middle English plasch, plasche, from Old English plæsċ (“pool, puddle”), from Proto-West Germanic *plask, probably ultimately imitative.

Cognate with Dutch plas (“pool, watering hole”). Related also to West Frisian plaskje (“to splash, splatter”), Dutch plassen (“to splash, splatter”), German platschen (“to splash”).

Noun

plash (plural plashes)

1. (UK, dialectal) A small pool of standing water; a puddle.
   • 1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book II, Canto VIII”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC:

     Out of the wound the red bloud flowed fresh, / That vnderneath his feet soone made a purple plesh.

   • 1597, Francis Bacon, Of the Coulers of Good and Evill, section 4:

     Hereof Aesop framed the Fable of the two Frogs that consulted together in time of drowth (when many plashes that they had repayred to were dry) what was to be done.

   • 1855, Robert Browning, Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came, section XXII:

     Who were the strugglers, what war did they wage, / Whose savage trample thus could pad the dank / Soil to a plash? [...]

   • a. 1678 (date written), Isaac Barrow, “(please specify the chapter name or sermon number). The Consideration of our Latter End”, in The Works of Dr. Isaac Barrow. […], volumes (please specify |volume=I to VII), London: A[braham] J[ohn] Valpy, […], published 1830–1831, →OCLC:

     These shallow plashes.

2. A splash, or the sound made by a splash.
   • 1888, Henry James, The Aspern Papers:

     Presently a gondola passed along the canal with its slow rhythmical plash, and as we listened we watched it in silence.

3. A sudden downpour.
   • 1926, T.E. Lawrence, Seven Pillars of Wisdom, New York: Anchor, published 1991, page 206:

     [...] down burst torrents of thick rain and muddied us to the skin. The valley began to run in plashes of water, and Dakhil-Allah urged us across it quickly. [...]

Verb

plash (third-person singular simple present plashes, present participle plashing, simple past and past participle plashed)

1. (intransitive) To splash.
   • 1818, John Keats, “Book I”, in Endymion: A Poetic Romance, London: […] T[homas] Miller, […] for Taylor and Hessey, […], →OCLC, page 1:

     plashing among bedded pebbles

   • 1855 November 10, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, “Pau-Puk-Keewis”, in The Song of Hiawatha, Boston, Mass.: Ticknor and Fields, →OCLC, page 222:

     Far below him plashed the waters, / Plashed and washed the dreamy waters; […]

   • 1847 December, Ellis Bell [pseudonym; Emily Brontë], chapter IX, in Wuthering Heights: […], volume (please specify |volume=I or II), London: Thomas Cautley Newby, […], →OCLC:

     […] heedless of my expostulations and the growling thunder, and the great drops that began to plash around her […]

2. (transitive) To cause a splash.
3. (transitive) To splash or sprinkle with colouring matter.

   to plash a wall in imitation of granite

Derived terms

• plashy

Translations

to splash

• Bulgarian: плискам се (pliskam se)
• Czech: šplouchat (cs)
• Dutch: pletsen (nl)
• German: platschen (de)
• Swedish: plaska (sv)
• Turkish: sıçramak (tr), sıçratmak (tr)

Etymology 2

From Middle English *plasshen, *plaisshen, *plesshen, from Old French plaissier, plessier (“to bend”), from Latin plectere (“to plait, weave”).

For the noun, compare Middle English plaisshes (“hedges forming an enclosure, palisade of hedges or wattles”). Compare also pleach.

Noun

plash (plural plashes)

1. The branch of a tree partly cut or bent, and bound to, or intertwined with, other branches.

Verb

plash (third-person singular simple present plashes, present participle plashing, simple past and past participle plashed)

1. (transitive) To cut partly, or to bend and intertwine the branches of.

   to plash a hedge

   • 1664, J[ohn] E[velyn], Sylva, or A Discourse of Forest-trees and the Propagation of Timber in His Majesties Dominions. […], London: […] Jo[hn] Martyn, and Ja[mes] Allestry, printers to the Royal Society, […], →OCLC:

     plash'd hedges

2. (transitive) To bend down a bough (in order to pick fruit from it).
   • 1679, John Bunyan, Pilgrim's Progress, Second Part: Some of the trees hung over the wall, and my brother did plash and eat.

Anagrams

• Pahls, halps, phals