plans

1. 1
   noun

   Plural of plan.

   The architect presented several competing plans to the board.

   Their evacuation plans were tested during the annual drill.

   Note

   A plural that covers very different things: an architect's drawings, the steps toward a goal, and the subscriptions a provider sells. Among drawings, plans show a building from above, floor by floor, as distinct from elevations, which show its faces. In everyday talk the intending sense dominates (make plans, change plans). Context alone separates a blueprint from an intention, because the inflection never differs.

2. 2
   verb

   Third-person singular simple present of plan.

   The committee plans its budget at the start of each fiscal year.

   She plans the route carefully whenever she leads a hike.

   Note

   The one present-tense form that keeps the single n: plan doubles its consonant in planning and planned, but plans adds only -s. It works with or without an object (she plans the route, he plans ahead) and also carries the sense of intending, as in she plans to leave. It is spelled the same as the noun plural, and position tells them apart: a subject comes before it, and an object or to-clause follows.

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