plot
UK[plɒt]US[plɑːt]
n
The series of events that form the story of a novel, play, film, etc.
n
A secret plan made by several people to do something that is illegal or harmful.
v
To make a secret plan to harm a person or organization, especially a political leader or government.
v
To mark points, lines, or curves on a graph or map.
Etymology
The word 'plot' has a complex history, arriving in modern English from two distinct but converging Old English sources. One source is 'plot,' meaning a small piece of ground, which is of Germanic origin. The other is the obsolete 'complot,' meaning a secret plan, which entered English from Old French, itself derived from a Latin root. Over centuries, these two strands intertwined. The sense of a 'plan' or 'scheme' (secret or literary) became dominant, while the original meaning of a 'piece of land' survives, particularly in the context of a burial plot or a garden plot. This etymological journey reflects a conceptual link between mapping out a physical area of land and devising the structural plan for a story.
Analysis
The word 'plot' is a simplex word of Germanic origin. It is not productively formed from separable morphemes in modern English.
Examples
The movie has a very complicated plot that is difficult to follow.
The police uncovered a plot to assassinate the ambassador.
Scientists plotted the data on a graph to visualize the trend.