Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun Something that weighs down or oppresses; a burden.
  • intransitive verb To fall straight down; plunge.
  • intransitive verb To decline suddenly and steeply.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • To weight with plummets, or as with plummets.
  • noun A piece of lead or other metal attached to a line, used in sounding the depth of water, determining the vertical, etc.
  • noun An instrument used by carpenters, masons, and others in adjusting erections to a vertical line; a plumb-rule.
  • noun The pommel or knob on the hilt of a sword.
  • noun A weight.
  • noun A piece of lead formerly used by school-boys to rule paper for writing.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun A piece of lead attached to a line, used in sounding the depth of water.
  • noun A plumb bob or a plumb line. See under Plumb, n.
  • noun Hence, any weight.
  • noun A piece of lead formerly used by school children to rule paper for writing.
  • noun a line with a plummet; a sounding line.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun archaic A piece of lead attached to a line, used in sounding the depth of water.
  • noun archaic A plumb bob or a plumb line.
  • noun archaic Hence, any weight.
  • noun archaic A piece of lead formerly used by school children to rule paper for writing
  • noun a plummet line, a line with a plummet; a sounding line.
  • noun Violent or dramatic fall
  • noun figuratively decline; fall; drop
  • verb intransitive To drop swiftly, in a direct manner; to fall quickly.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • verb drop sharply
  • noun the metal bob of a plumb line

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English plomet, from Old French, ball of lead, diminutive of plom, plomb, sounding lead, from Latin plumbum.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Old English plommet ("ball of lead", "plumb of a bob-line"), recorded since 1382, from Old French plommet or plomet, the diminutive of plom, plum ("lead", "sounding lead"), from Latin plumbum ("lead"). The verb is first recorded in 1626, originally meaning "to fathom, take soundings", from the noun.

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Examples

  • Church invented nothing new of her own when she began to extol Mary; she did not plummet from the worship of the one God to the praise of man.

    Insight Scoop | The Ignatius Press Blog: 2008

  • "We don't normally use the word plummet but that is the operative word right now," said Mr. Ward.

    States' Revenue Sinks Amid Income Tax Drop-Off 2009

  • The other factor causing military morale to plummet is President Bush's preemptive war in Iraq, which has been followed by a post-war period of no planning that has placed our soldiers in harm's way without hope.

    Sound Politics: Voter registration ruling was based on bogus evidence 2006

  • Theoretically, all of the male reindeer - or at least the qualified ones - get together once a year to pull Santa's sleigh, and I assume they have training sessions to make sure that none of them suddenly plummet from the air in a burning hunk of fur and venison.

    Just Further Consideration neorxnawang 2003

  • [...] continued plummet is just so damn frustrating.

    Matthew Yglesias » What Do Liberals Want? 2010

  • Complaints about unwanted telemarketing calls plummet ACMA

    Do Not Call Violation Complaints Declining | Lifehacker Australia 2009

  • I was sitting at home on a Sunday reading the New York Times, and there on the front page was a headline that said "Reagan's popularity plummets to 59 per cent: 'So right there I said:" There is the fundamental difference between Canada and the United States - language: 'The word plummet obviously does not mean the same thing here as it does in the.

    Relationships 1988

  • If people stop buying stuff, suddenly sales tax collection plummet, which is exactly what happened.

    Denver Post: News: Breaking: Local 2009

  • To capture their growth, you need to be willing to buy into them when their valuations plummet, which is usually when some kind of economic crisis strikes.

    Fool.com: The Motley Fool 2009

  • +3.47% shares have epitomized the notion of plummet.

    MarketWatch.com - Top Stories 2011

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