placement

noun

PLAYS-muhnt/ˈpleɪsmənt/

Pluralplacements (some meanings)

5 meanings of placement

1
noununcountable
The act of putting something in a particular place, or the state of being positioned there.
Careful placement of the cameras gave full coverage of the parking lot.
The placement of the new factory upstream raised pollution concerns.
Similarpositioning, siting, arrangement, location, installation
Oppositeremoval
2
nouncountable
A particular location or position where something is situated.
The antenna's placement on the roof improved the signal.
From its placement at the top of the hill, the old fort overlooked the whole valley.
Similarposition, location, site, situation
3
nouncountable or uncountable
The act of matching a person with a suitable job.
The agency's placement of graduates into tech firms has an excellent record.
Successful placement depends on understanding both the candidate and the employer.
Similarrecruitment, assignment
4
nounUKcountable
A temporary posting at a workplace that lets someone gain work experience.
Her nursing degree includes a placement on a hospital ward.
Students on placement at the firm shadowed senior staff for six weeks.
Similarinternship, attachment, practicum
Note
This is a British use, and a countable one: a trainee can have a first placement and go on to others. A 2021 RAIL profile of Amy McAllister recalls her "first placement" on a station site. People are on placement, or do a placement on a ward or at a firm. Keep it apart from matching someone with a job. That placement aims at employment, while this one is a spell of experience that ends.
5
nouncountable
In astrology, the zodiacal region of the sky in which the sun, moon, or a planet appears at the moment of a person's birth.
The placement of Mars in his chart, the astrologer claimed, explained his quick temper.
She traced each planet's placement at the moment of her birth.
Similarposition
Note
Astrology takes the everyday "position" sense and makes it a term of art for where a body sat in the zodiac at someone's birth. It usually comes with of and in: the placement of Mars in a sign, the moon's placement in her chart. Astrologers speak of placements in the plural as the separate pieces of a chart that a reading interprets one by one.

Practice

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Origin

Formed from "place" combined with the suffix "-ment".