Plotting

How to spell plotting

8 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce plotting

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does plotting mean?

1. verbSecretly planning something harmful, illegal, or surprising.
2. verbMarking points or drawing a curve on a graph, map, or chart.

Plotting in a sentence

• The rebels were plotting to overthrow the government.

• The analyst was plotting the sales figures on a line graph.

• She spent weeks plotting a surprise party for her husband.

• The navigator kept plotting the ship's course on the chart.

Where does plotting come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

The base word 'plot' comes from Old English 'plot', meaning a small piece of ground or a marked-out patch of land, a sense still alive in 'garden plot' and 'burial plot'. During the late 1500s the word took on the meaning of a secret scheme, very likely reinforced by the similar Old French word 'complot', meaning a dense crowd or a conspiracy, so the two strands of meaning, the patch of land and the laid-out plan, gradually merged in English. From there 'plot' also came to mean the plan of a story and the act of marking points on a chart or map, all sharing the idea of something carefully laid out. The participle 'plotting' simply adds '-ing' to 'plot', and because 'plot' ends in a single vowel followed by a single consonant with stress on that syllable, the final 't' doubles, which is the one spelling point worth remembering. The same doubling rule governs relatives like 'spotting', 'jotting', and 'knotting'.

How the word is built

• plot (secret plan; piece of ground)
• -t- (doubled consonant after a short stressed vowel)
• -ing (present participle/gerund)