Jump To:

• plantation
  plantation

  noun

  a large farm or estate in a tropical or semitropical zone, for the cultivation of cotton, tobacco, coffee, sugarcane, etc., typically by enslaved, unpaid, or low-wage resident laborers.
• Plantation
  Plantation

  noun

  a town in S Florida.

plantation

¹ American  

[plan-tey-shuhn] / plænˈteɪ ʃən /

noun

• plantations
  plural

1. a large farm or estate in a tropical or semitropical zone, for the cultivation of cotton, tobacco, coffee, sugarcane, etc., typically by enslaved, unpaid, or low-wage resident laborers.

2. a group of planted trees or plants.

3. History/Historical.

   1. a colony or new settlement.

   2. the establishment of a colony or new settlement.

4. Archaic. the planting of seeds, young trees, etc.

---

adjective

1. (of clothing, furnishings, etc.) suitable for a plantation or for a tropical or semitropical country.

Plantation ² American  

[plan-tey-shuhn] / plænˈteɪ ʃən /

noun

1. a town in S Florida.

---

plantation British  

/ plænˈteɪʃən /

noun

1. an estate, esp in tropical countries, where cash crops such as rubber, oil palm, etc, are grown on a large scale

2. a group of cultivated trees or plants

3. (formerly) a colony or group of settlers

4. rare the planting of seeds, shoots, etc

---

Other Word Forms

Derived Forms

• plantationlike
  adjective

Inflected Forms

Nouns

• plantations
  plural

Etymology

Origin of plantation

First recorded in 1400–50; late Middle English plantacioune, from Latin plantātiōn- (stem of plantātiō ) “a planting”; see plant (verb), -ation

Explanation

A plantation is a large agricultural property dedicated to planting a few crops on a large scale. If you dream of having 3,000 acres to raise cucumbers on, then you have dreams of a cucumber plantation. Plantation doesn't have to only mean massive single-product farms. A small grove of trees is also called a plantation, but usually when we use the word we mean the big farms. In the United States prior to the Civil War, crops like cotton and tobacco were grown on plantations in the South by exploiting the labor of enslaved people. In Latin America, many international companies own banana and coffee plantations.

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

plantation Plantation plantations

Highly venomous and responsible for more fatal snake bites in Central America than any other species, the fer-de-lance is well camouflaged and can blend into plantation habitats, sometimes going unnoticed by workers.

From BBC ● Aug. 25, 2026

Eston Hemings was born on May 21, 1808, and raised in slavery at Monticello, the Jefferson plantation in Virginia.

From Salon ● Jul. 27, 2026

Duncan was born Ruby Lee Phillips on June 7, 1932, near Tallulah, La., where her parents, Ida Bolden and Joseph Phillips, were sharecroppers on a white-owned plantation.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 5, 2026

He was unable to train that day because he had not had time to collect his kit after finishing work at a papaya plantation.

From Barron's ● Jun. 3, 2026

Enslaved Africans working to produce sugar on a West Indies plantation, based on an image by Theodore de Bry, 1590.

From "The Girl Who Drew Butterflies: How Maria Merian's Art Changed Science" by Joyce Sidman

After buying Kinloch Plantation, in Georgetown, S.C., for $2.9 million in 1982, he sold it for $18 million in 2025.

From The Wall Street Journal ● May 8, 2026

It wasn’t until two years later that Coe would snag a record deal with Shelby Singleton’s SSS International and Plantation Records and release “Penitentiary Blues.”

From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 30, 2026

Matthew Saneholtz, chief investment officer and senior wealth adviser at Tobias Financial Advisors in Plantation, Fla., told MarketWatch.

From MarketWatch ● Nov. 6, 2025

Morris, Pusser visited a saloon called the Plantation Club, run at the time by W.O.

From Slate ● Nov. 6, 2025

Plantation owners thus viewed Africans, who were relatively powerless, as the ideal slaves.

From "The New Jim Crow" by Michelle Alexander

American inspectors in Michoacán, who monitor plantations and packing plants to ensure the fruit is pest-free, occasionally have found themselves in the cross-hairs.

From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 6, 2026

A common misconception about American slavery is that most enslaved African-Americans lived on large plantations where contact with slaveholders was limited.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 10, 2026

Meanwhile, the Deep South consisted of a landowning class, some of whom relocated from slave plantations in the Caribbean, who formed an "oligarchic, top-down society".

From BBC ● Jul. 4, 2026

Sharda Devi, 55, a settler's daughter, recalls the first arrivals "toiling in some of the harshest conditions" to carve plantations out of the tangled forests.

From Barron's ● May 18, 2026

So many sugar plantations dotted the landscape that slaves called commanders managed other slaves.

From "Sugar Changed the World: A Story of Magic, Spice, Slavery, Freedom, and Science" by Marc Aronson

Related Words

• estate
• homestead
• orchard
• ranch