Plum And plumb And plump look like siblings (or at least cousins), but you might confuse them: they’re not the same at all.
Plum only ever is a noun (although it is a noun with an adjective inclination). It’s the fruit and the tree on which the fruit grows (it’s part of the rose family, by the way). When the fruit is dried, it is called prunes, which our very trusted grandparents assure us is essential for good health.
Sweet plums and all, that’s plum you want when you are describing what sweet Informally well described: a plum deal, a plum job, plum flat there. We agree that it sounds very adjective here, but it is considered a more correct attribution noun. (One trick so it’s not an adjective is that we don’t say “that job is plum”; we use that instead. ruffled feathers.)
plumb is a word related to your pipes and plumbing. That thing b be silent, make plumb sounds identical to the name of the fruit. While b helpfully signaling in print that the words are different, we will note here that b unnatural for the English word, but bestowed by some scholars who wanted the English word to look more like its Latin ancestor, plums, which means “lead.” Thank you.
plumb as a noun referring to a lead weight attached to a straight line and used specifically to indicate vertical direction. It is often used in the phrases “out of plumb” and “off plumb” to mean “not upright or right” or “not exactly vertically.”
Unlike plum, plumb was not satisfied with the use of simple nouns. No, this word also functions as an adverb, verb, and adjective. The adverb is used in the literal sense of “vertically”, as in “the plumb line”, but is also applied figuratively and formally in the sense of “totally”, as in “wrong plumb line” and “exactly”, as in “the plumb line in the middle.” Its verb usage is mainly limited to two categories: those involving very specific tasks of installing pipes and connecting fixtures (as in “plumbing for a house”. new” and “plumbing for bathroom fixtures”) and those are metaphorical extensions of especially lead weight when it is used to determine the depth of water on acoustic lines: a play “exploring the depths of human nature” that fully considers human nature; if a stock “falls to a new depth” it will reach a new low. As an adjective, plumb mainly used to mean “exactly upright,” as in “a vertical wall.”
And then plump.
It sounds different, with \p\ in the end, but it looks extremely similar, and it has several meanings that make it easy to confuse with other words. Alike plumb, plump function in many ways. It is mainly known for its adjective usage of “having a generally pleasant round form”, as in “puffy cheeks”, but it is a verb, double — by which we mean two verb plump etymologically unrelated. The oldest meaning of plump, which involves dropping, sinking, or placing suddenly or heavily, such as “they plopped down on the chair” and “she put the bags down on the bench,” being one of them. The same verb is used figuratively, especially with because, to talk about expressing support for someone or something, as in “pumping for the incumbent application,” or in British English, to choose something or someone after careful consideration, as in “pumping for the cake better than the pie.” The other verb is related to filling or filling, as in “filling a pillow/cushion.”
Quite ambiguous are the two noun uses of plumpone refers to the sudden plunge, fall, or blow, or sound made by a rock (“full of rocks falling into the water”) and to a group or flock, as in “a duck rock.”
Also obscure but more complicated is adverb plump: it means “with a sudden or heavy drop”, as in “landing to the floor,” as well as “straight down” (“falling to the bottom”) and “straight forward” (“standing on the road “). It is also used to mean “directly” or “without qualification,” as in “say it well rounded and simple.” But none of these are common in use today.
In summary, here are the most common uses of each: plum mention a fruit and describe pleasant things; plump describe full, rounded forms; And plumb is a versatile word with verb meanings related to plumbing and deep inspection and experience; adjective and adverb meaning related to uprightness and used informally as a synonym of “completely” and “correctly”. We have never spoken English so easily.
Categories: Usage Notes
Source: vothisaucamau.edu.vn
