1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Plot

PLOT, a term originally meaning a space of ground used for a specific purpose, especially as a building site, formerly in frequent usage in the sense of a plan, a surveyed space of ground; hence the literary sense of a plan or design. The word is of doubtful origin; there is a collateral form “plat,” which appears in the 16th century, according to the New English Dictionary, under the influence of “plat,” flat place, surface (Fr. plat, Late Lat. plattus, probably from Gr. πλατύς, broad). Skeat (Etym. Dict.) refers “plot,” in the sense of a space of ground, to the O. Eng. plaec, Mid. Eng. pleck, later platch, patch. “Plot,” in the sense of plan, scheme, would then be identical with “plot,” a conspiracy, which may be a shortened form of “complot,” a French word, also of doubtful origin, meaning in the 12th century “a compact body of men”; in the 14th century “conspiracy.”