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.
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 of plank
1275–1325;Middle Englishplanke < Old North French < Latinplanca board, plank. See planch
Related formsplank·less, adjectiveplank·like, adjectiveun·planked, adjective
late 13c. (c.1200 as a surname), from Old North French planke, variant of Old French planche "plank, slab, little wooden bridge" (12c.), from Late Latin planca "broad slab, board," probably from Latin plancus "flat, flat-footed," from PIE *plak- (1) "to be flat" (see placenta). Technically, timber sawed to measure 2 to 6 inches thick, 9 inches or more wide, 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 1789 and most early references are to slave-traders disposing of excess human cargo in crossing the ocean.
