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Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
plait
I.verb
COLLOCATIONS FROM OTHER ENTRIES
French plait
COLLOCATIONS FROM CORPUS
■ NOUN
hair
▪ I washed and combed and plaited my hair and rubbed my clogs, then I went round and knocked on the door.
▪ Her older sisters plaited and decorated her hair, encouraging an already overdeveloped vanity.
▪ Perhaps I would like them to plait my hair?
▪ Roman hair had been plaited to make hair for these gods.
▪ Detective Constable Julie Bignall was reported for allowing a prisoner to plait her hair.
▪ I plaited my own hair and then I straightened my ink-stained pinafore and we were ready to go.
EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS
▪ Her hair had been plaited and coiled at the back of her head, but there was no mistaking her for Han.
▪ Her older sisters plaited and decorated her hair, encouraging an already overdeveloped vanity.
▪ I washed and combed and plaited my hair and rubbed my clogs, then I went round and knocked on the door.
▪ Perhaps I would like them to plait my hair?
▪ Some of them had plaited scraps of cloth in their long black hair and all wore beads around their necks.
▪ You will need to plait your horse's mane and pull or plait his tail.
II.noun
EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS
▪ A woman with a blond plait was seen getting out of a car with a man near the canal upstream of Sharpness.
▪ Lynn had a round face with freckles and brown eyes and she wore her fair hair in a thick plait.
▪ Melanie started wearing her hair in stiff plaits, in the manner of a squaw.
▪ She chewed at the spiky end of a plait and kicked at a kitchen chair-leg.
▪ She has tied her hair in one drooping plait.
▪ She was about eleven, with long red hair in two plaits.
▪ The rope of her orange-grey plait tumbled on to her shoulder.
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Plait

Plait \Plait\, n. [OE. playte, OF. pleit, L. plicatum, plicitum, p. p. of plicare to fold, akin to plectere to plait. See Ply, and cf. Plat to weave, Pleat, Plight fold.]

  1. A flat fold; a doubling, as of cloth; a pleat; as, a box plait.

    The plaits and foldings of the drapery.
    --Addison.

  2. A braid, as of hair or straw; a plat.

    Polish plait. (Med.) Same as Plica.

Plait

Plait \Plait\, v. t. [imp. & p. p. Plaited; p. pr. & vb. n. Plaiting.]

  1. To fold; to double in narrow folds; to pleat; as, to plait a ruffle.

  2. To interweave the strands or locks of; to braid; to plat; as, to plait hair; to plait rope.

Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
plait

late 14c., "to fold, gather in pleats," also "to braid or weave," from Old French pleir "to fold," variant of ploier, ployer "to fold, bend," from Latin plicare "to fold" (see ply (v.1)). Related: Plaited; plaiting.

plait

c.1400, "a fold, a crease," from Anglo-French pleit, Old French ploit, earlier pleit, "fold, manner of folding," from Latin plicatus, past participle of plicare "to lay, fold, twist" (see ply (v.1)). Meaning "interlaced strands of hair, ribbon, etc." is from 1520s, perhaps from plait (v.).\n

Wiktionary
plait

n. 1 A flat fold; a doubling, as of cloth; a pleat. 2 A braid, as of hair or straw; a plat. vb. 1 (context transitive English) To fold; to double in narrow folds; to pleat; as, to plait a ruffle. 2 (context transitive English) To interweave the strands or locks of; to braid; to plat; as, to plait hair; to plait rope.

WordNet
plait
  1. n. a hairdo formed by braiding or twisting the hair [syn: braid, tress, twist]

  2. any of various types of fold formed by doubling fabric back upon itself and then pressing or stitching into shape [syn: pleat]

  3. v. make by braiding or interlacing; "lace a tablecloth" [syn: braid, lace]

  4. weave into plaits; "plait hair"

Wikipedia
Plait

A plait may refer to:

  • Plait, also called a braid, intertwined strands of, for example, textile or hair
  • Plait, now called a pleat, a fold of fabric, used in clothing and upholstery
  • Plait (gastropod), a fold in the columella of a gastropod mollusc

Plait may also refer to:

  • Phil Plait, American astronomer, skeptic and blogger
Plait (gastropod)

A plait is an anatomical feature which is present the shells of some snails, or gastropods. This sculpture occurs often in the shells of marine gastropod mollusks in the clade Neogastropoda, but it is also found in some pulmonate land snails.

Plaits are folds on the columella (also known as the pillar or axis) at the center of the shell. The columella (meaning little column) is the central structure around which the whorls of a coiled gastropod shell are coiled.

The presence or absence of plaits, and the number of plaits, are characteristics used in the description of many gastropod molluscs, often enabling similar species to be separated and identified correctly.

Usage examples of "plait".

We shall see, for if he puts her in I shall recognize her by her Black Forest clothes, and her burned complexion, her plump figure, her fat hands, her dull expression, her gentle spirit, her generous feet, her bonnetless head, and the plaited tails of hemp-colored hair hanging down her back.

I had made my own spear and spear-thrower, but Yuma had made my boomerang for me, and in exchange I had given him a belt I had plaited from snakeskin.

Wald passed on to the boy who plaited manes, and the youngster readily did as he was bid, working sometimes from before dawn until long after dark, and never seeming to want more than what food he could eat while standing in the kitchen.

All that was demanded of him the boy who plaited manes did without any change in his thin face, any movement of his closed mouth, any flash of his feral eyes.

Wald considered the constant plaiting and adorning of manes and tails a great bother.

And there was a small cup of carved stone, filled with sticky animal fat, within which a length of plaited mastodont fur burned slowly, giving off a greasy smoke.

He completed a plait and tied it with a thin strip from the offcut of her skirt.

Most of the inmates were already in bed, but Mary sat cross-legged on the floor, plaiting a mat of pandanus by the light of a taper of candlenuts.

These include Chinese silk, embroidery in gold thread of extreme fineness and technical skill from Byzantium and the Orient, passementerie, heavy gold brocade, and plaited cords of the finest quality.

Cette baie ou le vent du nord entre avec les goelettes norvegiennes chargees de planches et de fers bruts, Saint-Valery, ne plait point aux etrangers.

She was half out of bed, when there was a knock on the door and Prissy came in with her hair in a plait.

Her long, thin, practiced fingers rapidly unplaited, replaited, and tied up her plait.

She seemed to have herself tolerably well in hand, but her eyes were restless and her fingers plaited and replaited the folds of her dress.

Red ribbons tumbled about it, plaiting and replaiting in the wind that blew through from the other side.

When she had thrown off her dress and put on a dressing jacket, she sat down with her foot under her on the bed that had been made up on the floor, jerked her thin and rather short plait of hair to the front, and began replaiting it.