Plot

Plot (pronounced plot)

A secret plan or scheme to accomplish some purpose, describes especially as such if for some hostile, unlawful, or evil purpose.

(2) In fiction, the plan, scheme, or main story of a literary or dramatic work (play, novel short story etc) (also called storyline or plotline and a plat may include a number of subplots).

(3) A small piece or area of ground (often with a modifier: garden plot; burial plot et al); a measured piece or parcel of land.

(4) A plan, map, diagram or other graphic representation, as of land, a building etc (in US use synonymous with a surveyor's map.

(5) A list, timetable, or scheme dealing with any of the various arrangements for the production of a play, motion picture etc.

(6) A chart showing the course of a craft (ship or airplane).

(7) In military use, a graphic representation of an individual or tactical setting that pinpoints an artillery target (as a point or points located on a map or chart (often as target plot)).

(8) To plan secretly, especially something hostile or evil.

(9) To mark on a plan, map, or chart, as the course of a ship or aircraft.

(10) To draw a plan or map of, as a tract of land or a building.

(11) To divide land into plots.

(12) To determine and mark (points), as on plotting paper, by means of measurements or coordinates; to describe curve by means of points so marked; to represent by means of such a curve; to make a calculation by means of a graph.

(13) To devise or construct the plot of a play, novel etc.

(14) To prepare a list, timetable, or scheme of production arrangements for a play, motion picture etc.

Pre 1100: From the Middle English plot & plotte, (piece of ground) in the sense of “small area, patch, stain, piece of ground” and was often associated with actual legal title to the defined area.  This was an inheritance from the Old English plot (piece of ground) which may (it’s contested among etymologists) be from the Proto-Germanic plataz & platjaz (a patch), the origin of which is unknown.  It was cognate with the Middle Low German plet (patch, strip of cloth, rags), the German Bletz (rags, bits, strip of land) and the Gothic plats (a patch, rags).

In the 1550s it gained the sense of “ground plan, outline, map, scheme”, a variant of the Middle English plat & platte (flat part of a sword; flat piece of ground, plot of ground), itself partly a variant of the Middle English & Old English plot.  The sense of a “secret plan” emerged in the 1580s by association with the Middle French complot (crowd-, plot (ie a combined plan)) of an unknown origin but the Oxford English Dictionary notes the speculation it may have been a back-formation from compeloter (to roll into a ball) from pelote (ball).  The verb was a derivative of the noun.  Plot in the sense “a storyline or main story of a fictional work” dates from the 1640s while the now familiar phrase “plot-line” (main features of a story) seems not to have appeared in print prior to the 1940s although it may earlier have been in oral use as theatre slang in the sense of “a sentence containing matter essential to the comprehension of the play's story” since early in the century.  The noun marplot (one who by officious interference defeats a design) was from 1708 and was the name of a character in Susanna Centlivre's (circa 1669-1723) comedy The busie body.  The phrase sub-plot dates from 1812.  The specific idea of a small piece of land in a cemetery (described variously as “burial plot” or “funeral plot”) was an invention of mid-nineteenth century US English.

HP DesignJet (24 inch (610 mm)) A1 Studio Plotter Printer (steel finish; HP part-number HPDJST24ST).

In the context of (an often secret and for some unscrupulous purpose) plan or scheme, plot can be synonymous with conspiracy but while a plot can be devised by a single individual, a conspiracy by definition involves at least two.  To scheme is to plan (usually with an implication of subtlety) often craftily and typically for one's own advantage.  Words related to plot in this sense includes intrigue, cabal, conspiracy, brew, hatch, frame, design, maneuver, scam & trick.  In the sense of land it can be section, division, parcel, piece etc.  The meaning "to make a map or diagram of, lay down on paper according to scale" was a borrowing from the nefarious sense of scheming and dates from the 1580s while the intransitive sense of "to form a plan or device" is from circa 1600.  In the sense of the lines on a chart or map, there’s no exact synonym (although various shapes (lines, curves, arcs etc) may be describes as a part of a whole plot and the word was (as plotter) adopted as the name of the device (a plotter was previously an individual employed manually to draw) used to draw the lines and mark the points of plans, schematics, blueprints etc.  In idiomatic use, to “lose the plot” is to become confused or disorientated or (more commonly) to lose one's ability or judgment in a (usually stressful) situation.  Plot is really unique to English and other languages picked it up unaltered including French, Dutch, Albanian & Spanish while Czech gained it from the Old Czech which (like Serbo-Croatian), gained it from the Proto-Slavic plotъ; Indonesian picked it up from the Dutch.  Plot is a noun & verb, plotted is a verb, plotting is a noun & verb, plotful & plotless are adjectives and plotter is a noun; the noun plural is plots (the form often also used as a verb).  The verb outplot (to surpass in plotting or scheming) is rare, the derived forms being outplotted & outplotting.

A plot in progress: The Gunpowder Plotters (circa 1610), copperplate engraving conspiring by Crispijn van de Passe the Elder (circa 1564-1637)

Use of the word “plot” spiked suddenly once the “Gunpowder Plot” of 5 November 1605 became well-known.  The Gunpowder Plot was a conspiracy among English Roman Catholics to blow up the houses of parliament, killing, inter alia, King James (James Charles Stuart, 1566–1625; King of Scotland as James VI from 1567 and King of England and Ireland as James I after the union of the Scottish and English in 1603 until 1625), his queen and eldest son.  Henry VIII’s (1491-1547; King of England 1509-1547) creation of the Church of England after breaking with Rome in 1534 meant the Roman Catholic Church vanished only in an institutional sense while many adherents to the denomination remained and in the years after Henry’s fiat, there had been many plots which aimed to restore Romish ways to the Isle.  The gunpowder plot was probably the most dramatic (and certainly the most explosive) and was induced by the anger of some zealous Roman Catholics (the most remembered of whom was Guy Fawkes (1570-1606) at the king’s refusal to extend more rights to Catholics.  Their probably not unreasonable assumption was that with the death of the senior royals and most of the members of the House of Commons and House of Lords, there would be such confusion the English Catholics would have their best chance to take back the government of the country and re-establish their Church.

The idea of killing the king was not new (England, like many of the nations of Europe enjoying something of a tradition of regicide) and prior to the Gunpowder Plot being put in train, there had been attempts to gain political and economic rights by negotiation but the authorities (thin-end-of-the-wedge theorists) remained intransigent and the Penal Laws (a body of laws with the practical effect of outlawing Roman Catholicism) remained in force.  Accordingly, the plotters assembled some dozens of barrels of gunpowder (an even now impressive 1½ tons (1400 kg)) and secured a lease on a vault which sat directly beneath the House of Lords, hiding the explosives beneath piles of sacks, coal and firewood.  The preparations in place, discussions were undertaken among the Catholic elite to allocate the positions in the government which would be formed once James’s daughter, the nine-year old Princess Elizabeth Stuart (1596–1662) was installed as queen.  If that seems now a strange choice (and the plot included having her brought-up as a Roman Catholic and at some tender age married off to a suitably Romish groom) it doubtlessly reflected the view the (exclusively male) plotters held of women.  Confident of their success, emissaries were dispatched to foreign courts likely to be sympathetic which included the Holy See in Rome.

Up to this point, the gunpowder plot flawlessly had evolved because the most vital part (secrecy between the conspirators) had been maintained.  However, shortly before the fuse was to be lit, one of the plotters suffered pangs of conscience at the idea of mass murder (which would include not a few Roman Catholics) and sent an anonymous letter to one member of the Lords with whom he was acquainted:

My lord, out of the love I bear to some of your friends, I have a care of your preservation, therefore I would advise you as you tender your life to devise some excuse to shift your attendance at this parliament, for God and man have concurred to punish the wickedness of this time, and think not slightly of this advertisement, but retire yourself into your country, where you may expect the event in safety, for though there be no appearance of any stir, yet I say they shall receive a terrible blow this parliament and yet they shall not see who hurts them, this counsel is not to be condemned because it may do you good and can do you no harm, for the danger is past as soon as you have burnt the letter and I hope God will give you the grace to make good use of it, to whose holy protection I commend you.

Alarmed, his lordship alerted the authorities and the decision was taken to search the premises but to wait until closer to the day when the members were due to convene so the plotters might reveal themselves.  At this point the plot was unraveling because the nature of the warning letter became known to the plotters but, upon discovering their gunpowder undisturbed, they assumed it had been dismissed as fake news and resolved to continue, placing a lookout to watch over the vault.  It was to no avail because on 4 November, a search was undertaken and the stash uncovered.  Guy Fawkes, linked to the lease taken on the vault was arrested and, under the torture for which the Stuarts were justly famous, named his fellow plotters and the extent of their participation.  The planned insurrection quickly collapsed and while a few of the plotters made good their escape to the continent, most were either killed while fleeing or captured and executed.

Guy Fawkes in effigy burning on a 5 November bonfire.

Their planed act of terrorism caused such revulsion in England that the cause of Catholic emancipation was set back centuries and laws against them were strengthened and to add insult to injury, in January 1606 the parliament established November 5 as a day of public thanksgiving.  Known as Guy Fawkes Day, it was a popular public festival celebrated throughout the land, the highlight of which was the creation of huge bonfires upon which sat an effigy called "a guy" which had been paraded through the streets.  It's from this use that the word "guy" evolved into the present form, losing gradually the negative connotations (especially in the US) and late in the twentieth century also the exclusively male identity (the male proper name originally the French and related to the Italian Guido.).  Guy Fawkes day is still celebrated in England with bonfires and fireworks but in most of the Commonwealth, where “cracker night” had also been a fond tradition, it has suffered the fate of much in the nanny state, the humorous bureaucrats thinking fun must be had without the annual toll of eyes and fingers for which Guy Fawkes nights had become noted, the injuries increasing as fireworks became more powerful.  Australians and others might be surprised if wandering Amsterdam’s streets on new year’s eve, children happily launching some quite impressive ordnance across the canals without apparent ill-effect.

Lindsay Lohan (with body double) on location in Westport, County Mayo, Ireland, for the shooting of Irish Wish.  Lindsay Lohan has (an admittedly remote) connection with the Irish, the surname Lohan an anglicization of the Irish Ó Leocháin, from Middle Irish uí Leochain, from the Old Irish úa Lothcháin (the modern alternative forms being O'Lohan, Loughan, Loghan & Logan).  Car is a Triumph TR4A (1965-1967).  Netflix have released the plotline of the upcoming Irish Wish (release slated for 2024):

When the love of her life gets engaged to her best friend, Maddie puts her feelings aside to be a bridesmaid at their wedding in Ireland. Days before the pair are set to marry, Maddie makes a spontaneous wish for true love, only to wake up as the bride-to-be. With her dream seeming to come true, Maddie soon realizes that her real soulmate is someone else entirely.

Facsimile

Facsimile (pronounced fak-sim-uh-lee)

(1) An exact copy of something (most typically a book, painting, or manuscript).

(2) In telecommunications a method, protocol collection or device (ie the “fax” or “fax machine”) for transmitting data which exists in printed form (typically text documents, drawings, photographs et al) by means of radio or telephone for exact reproduction on a compatible device in another place; expressed usually as the clipping “fax”.

(4) An image transmitted by such a method (historically always in paper hard-copy but technically can be a digital file (e-Fax and similar systems).

(4) To reproduce in facsimile; make a facsimile of something (also as a modifier as in facsimile publication or facsimile transmission).

1655–1665: From the earlier fac simile! (make something like it!), the construct being the Latin fac (imperative of facere (to make; to render) (from the primitive Indo-European root dhe- (to set, put in place)) + simile, noun use of the neuter of similis (alike; similar).  In the English-speaking world, the one-word form was almost universal by the early twentieth century; that always used for the adjective which dates from 1877.  In the modern way, other languages tended to use “fax” unaltered from English use as the technology was adopted.  One exception was French where the older form fac-similé (plural fac-similés) was officially preferred even to facsimilé but even there the monosyllabic “fax” usually prevailed.  Facsimile (like fax) is a noun, verb & adjective, facsimiled (or facsimiled) & facsimileing (or facsimiling) are verbs (again, more familiar as faxed & faxing); the noun plural is either facsimiles or facsimilia (and of fax it is faxes).

There are a remarkable number of synonyms for facsimile (in the sense of copy) including copy, carbon copy, likeness, replica, clone, copy, ditto, double, dupe, duplicate, look-alike, mimeo, mirror, print, reduplication, replication & ringer (even “miniature” was often used and understood in context) but such was the influence of the fax machine that for other purposes “facsimile” tends now to be used only in historic reference.  One example of appropriate use was the celebration in 1943 of the 50^th birthday of Joachim von Ribbentrop (1893–1946; Minister of Foreign Affairs of Nazi Germany 1938-1945), the highlight of which was a presentation to the minister of a diamond-studded casket containing facsimiles of all the treaties he had signed during (his admittedly busy if not productive) tenure.  When one of his aides remarked that there were only “a few treaties we had not broken”, Ribbentrop was briefly uncertain how to react until he saw “…Hitler’s eyes filled with tears of laughter”.  It was said to be a good party.  The casual dismissiveness towards treaties was shared by most of the Nazi regime, Hermann Göring (1893–1946; prominent Nazi 1923-1945 & Reichsmarschall of Germany 1940-1975) cheerfully gloating when under cross-examination during the Nuremburg Trial (1945-1946) that he regarded treaties as “…just so much toilet paper”.  Like Ribbentrop, he was convicted on all four counts and (planning aggressive war, waging aggressive war, war crimes & crimes against humanity) and sentenced to be hanged.

Facsimile copy of the secret protocol to the Ribbentrop-Molotov (Nazi-Soviet) Pact, signed in Moscow 23 August 1939.

The protocol defined (1) the parameters of the two countries respective spheres of interest in parts of Europe, (2) the actual borders of the Baltic States (Estonia, Latvia & Lithuania) and (3) the division of Poland.  In the case of Poland, the line of demarcation was essentially the same as the Curzon Line, drawn in 1919 by the UK's foreign secretary Lord Curzon (1859–1925), something which in discussions towards the end of World War II (1939-1645) would cause some embarrassment to British negotiators.

Fax machines are unfashionable though not quite extinct.  For most users, most of the time, the alternatives are better but fax across phone lines did have some real advantages, the most obvious being security; it was just about impossible to intercept a tax message unless one was able physically to tap into the physical copper wires attaching the send & receive devices to the telephone network.  There was also something pleasingly democratic about fax, the low transmission speed (the default for years was 14.4 kbit/s although support for the V34 standard (28.8 & 33.6) became common and digital modems even ran over ISDN at 64 kbit/s) meant just about everyone on the telephone network ran at about the same rate.  Sometimes too, legislation for a while cemented the fax’s place in communications, banks and the real estate industry long fond of the fax because a signature transmitted thus was accepted as evidence in matters of contract law while the electronic version was not (and with good reason).  Cultural factors too made a difference.  Long after their receptionists had switched to using computers and thus eMail and other forms of communications, medical practitioners seemed to be creatures of habit and thought if something wasn’t a fax then it wasn’t real.

Lindsay Lohan, faxed.

Fax as short form of facsimile was wholly unrelated to the original fax which was from the Middle English fax, from the Old English feax (hair, head of hair), from the Proto-West Germanic fahs, from the Proto-Germanic fahsą (hair, mane), from the primitive Indo-European poḱsom (hair (literally “that which is combed, shorn, or plucked”)), from the primitive Indo-European peḱ- (to comb, shear, pluck).  It was cognate with the Dutch vas (headhair), the German Fachs (head-hai”), the Norwegian faks (mane), the Icelandic fax (mane) and the Sanskrit पक्ष्मन् (pákṣman) (eyelash, hair, filament).  The Latin fax (torch, firebrand; fireball, comet; cause of ruin, incitement), from the primitive Indo-European ǵhwehk- (to shine) and cognate with facētus (elegant, fine; courteous, polite; witty, jocose, facetious) and the Lithuanian žvakė (candle) and there’s also a speculative link to the Etruscan word for face (which may also have meant torch).  In English (and apparently Scottish) dialectal use it used to mean “hair of the head” until the late fifteenth century.  The first recorded use as a clipping of facsimile (or in some countries “telefax”) to describe the consumer level telecommunications technology, its output and use is thought to date from 1979 but use as an oral form may slightly have predated this.  However, as a noun, “fax” had been in use by telegraphy engineers since 1948 and the verb in this context dates from at least 1970 although, in oral use it could have a longer history.

Brother FAX1820C fax machine.

Adding to the obsolescence was the switch in many countries away from the sometimes century-old analogue network of copper wires to a digital system, something which was the death knell of many fax machines.  In corporations, where internal PBXs (private branch exchange (also PABX (private automated branch exchange)), had usually provided a translation layer which provided both analogue and digital lines, the fax machines (usually as one of the components of a MFD (multi-function device which handled photocopying, faxing, scanning, OCR (optical character recognition) and sometimes even storage) carried serenely on although the evidence suggested use had diminished sometimes to zero.  Even in homes and small businesses without a PBX, adaptors are available which link a fax machine to a SIP/VoIP (Session Initiation Protocol/Voice over Internet Protocol) account, emulating the analogue original.  Unlike the old and robust telephone system, reliability could be patchy because the performance of the internet tends to bounce around more and (strangely) error correction is a less exact science.  There are more sophisticated solutions but they don’t use existing hardware so costs are higher and the take-up rate has been low, reflecting that most e-mail or other messaging solutions cover the needs of most users at zero or marginal cost.

The Imperial fax machine that never was

In the two decades between 1955-1975 when Chrysler in the US ran Imperial as a separate division rather than a badge to be used for up-market versions built on the corporate full-sized platform (although Imperials in their last generations did revert to such engineering), despite the odd encouraging season, the brand never threatened the dominance of Cadillac in the sector and rarely troubled Ford's Lincoln, the perennial runner-up.  The 1967 & 1968 Imperial range did however offer something truly unique.  The “Mobile Director Package” was available exclusively on the Imperial Crown Coupe and reflected (within the limits of what the available technology and fiscal realism would then permit) what Chrysler thought a company director would most value in an automobile being used as a kind of “office on the move” and it included: an extendable walnut-topped table which could be unfolded over the rear seats, a gooseneck (Tensor brand) high-intensity lamp which could be plugged into the cigarette lighter on either side of the car (in a sign of the times, Imperials had four cigarette lighters installed) and most intriguingly, the front passenger seat could rotate 180° to permit someone comfortably to use the tables and interact with those in the rear.  Unfortunately, the fax machine previewed on the well-publicized prototype didn't make the cut for the production version.  All the publicity material associated with the Mobile Director Package did suggest the rearward-facing seat would likely be occupied by a director’s secretary and as one might imagine, the configuration did preclude her (and those depicted were usually women) using a lap & sash seat-belt but she would always have been in arm’s reach of at least one cigarette lighter so there was that.  The package was available only for those two seasons and in its first years cost US$597.40 (some US$5500 adjusted for 2023 values).  The cost of the option was in 1968 reduced to US$317.60 (some US$2800 adjusted for 2023 values) but that did little to stimulate demand, only 81 buyers of Crown Coupes ticking the box so even if the new safety regulations hadn’t outlawed the idea, it’s doubtful the Mobile Director Package would have appeared on the option list in 1969 when the new (and ultimately doomed) “fuselage” Imperials debuted.

Imperial's advertising always emphasised the "business" aspect of the package but the corporation also circulated a photograph of the table supporting a (presumably magnetic) chessboard and another with a bunch of grapes tumbling seductively.  The latter may have been to suggest the utility of the package when stopping for a picnic with one's secretary.  Once advertising agencies got ideas, they were hard to restrain.    

The advertising copy at the time claimed the package was “designed for the busy executive who must continue his work while he travels”, serving also as “an informal conference lounge”.  The Imperial was a big car (although the previous generations were larger still) but “lounge” was a bit of a stretch but “truth in advertising” laws were then not quite as onerous as they would become.  More accurate were the engineering details, the table able to “pivot to any of four different positions, supported by a sturdy chrome-plated pillar and in the forward position, it can convert into a padded armrest between the two front seats while extended, it opens out to twice its original size with a lever on the table swivel support to permit adjustments to the height”.  It was noted “a special tool is used for removing the table and storing it in the trunk” the unstated implication presumably that in deference to the secretary’s finger-nails, that would be a task for one’s chauffeur.  The US$597.40 the option listed at in 1967 needs to be compared with the others available and only the most elaborate of the air conditioning systems was more expensive.

Imperial option list, 1967.

The package as it appeared in showrooms was actually modest compared with the “Mobile Executive” car the corporation sent around the show circuit in 1966.  That Imperial had been fitted with a telephone, Dictaphone, writing table, typewriter, television, a fax machine, reading lamp and stereophonic sound system.  The 1966 show car was also Crown Coupe but it was much more ambitious, anticipating advances in mobile communications which would unfold over the next quarter century.  At the time, car phones were available (the first service in the US offered during the late 1940s) although they were expensive and the nature of the bandwidth used and the lack of data compression meant that the range was limited as was the capacity; only several dozen calls able simultaneously to be sustained.  In 1966, there was even the novelty of a Datafax, a "facsimile machine" (later to become the ubiquitous "fax") able to send or receive a US Letter-sized (slightly smaller than A4) page of text in six minutes.  That sounds unimpressive in 2023 (or compared even with the 14.4 kbit/s for Group 3 FaxStream services of the 1990s) but the appropriate comparison is with the contemporary alternatives (driving, walking or using the US Mail) and six minutes would have been a considerable advance.  As it was, the tempting equipment awaited improvements in infrastructure such as the analogue networks of the 1980s and later cellular roll-outs and these technologies contributed to the extent of use which delivered the economies of scale which eventually would make possible smart phones.

The 1966 car which toured the show circuit demonstrated the concept which, in simplified form, would the next year appear on the option list but things like telephones and fax machines anticipated the future by many years (although fax machines in cars (Audi one of a handful to offer them) never became a thing).  The Dictaphone did however make the list as one of Chrysler's regular production options (RPO) in the early 1970s and the take-up rate was surprisingly high although the fad quickly passed, dealers reporting the customers saying they worked well but they "never used them".

Broad

Broad (pronounced brawd)

(1) Of great breadth.

(2) A quasi-standard expression of lineal measurement (from side to side).

(3) Of great extent; large; extensive, ample, spacious, vast.

(4) Wide-open; full (applied usually to daylight).

(5) Not limited or narrow; of extensive range or scope (applied to knowledge, experience etc).

(6) Liberal; tolerant (semi-institutionalized as one of the three factions of the Anglican Church (Low, broad & high).

(7) A generalized summary of something (often as broad outline); general rather than specific.

(8) Something made plain or clear; outspoken.

(9) Indelicate; indecent, vulgar (now rare).

(10) Of conversation, rough; countrified, unrefined.

(11) Unconfined; unbridled; unrestrained.

(12) In linguistics, of pronunciation, strongly dialectal; the most exaggerated of its type; consisting of a large number of speech sounds characteristic of a particular geographical area or social class.  As applied to Gaelic languages: velarized (ie palatalized).

(13) In phonetics, of a transcription, using one basic symbol to represent each phoneme; of or relating to a type of pronunciation transcription in which symbols correspond approximately to phonemes without taking account of allophonic variations.

(14) In (mostly historic US & Canadian) slang, a usually disparaging term for a women, often one that hints at promiscuity (but not prostitution); often in the plural.

(15) In film & television production, an incandescent or fluorescent lamp used as a general source of light in a studio.

(16) A type of wide-bladed battle sword.

(17) A gold coin of England and Scotland, minted first in 1656 and issued by James I and Charles I; equal to 20 shillings.

(18) As broadband, a term now vague in meaning which implies a high-speed internet connection but which has been applied to any service rated faster than the highest speed possible using a single analogue modem connected with a conventional phone line (copper pair (Cat3)).

(19) In public finance, as broad money, denoting an assessment of liquidity including notes and coins in circulation, bank holdings, most private-sector bank deposits, and certain bank-deposit certificates; usually classed as M3 in the (sort of) standardized system by which OECD countries measure the money supply.

(20) In UK dialectal use, a river spreading over a lowland (in East Anglia, a shallow lake).

(21) In woodworking, a wood-turning tool used for shaping the insides and bottoms of cylinders.

(22) In the UK, a common pronunciation of B-road (a secondary road).

Pre 1000: From the Middle English brood, brode, brod & broad from the Old English brād (broad, flat, open, extended, spacious, wide, ample, copious; not narrow), from the Proto-Germanic braidi, from the Proto-West Germanic braid, from the Proto-Germanic braidaz (broad), of uncertain origin.  It was cognate with the Scots braid (broad), the West Frisian breed (broad), the Saterland Frisian breed (broad), the Low German breet & breed (broad), the Dutch breed (broad), the German & Old High German breit (broad, wide), the Danish, Swedish & Norwegian Bokmål bred (broad), the Norwegian brei (broad), the Icelandic breiður (broad, wide), the Old Norse breiðr (breithr), the Old Frisian brēd and the Gothic braiths & brouþs.  The word is not found except in Germanic languages and there has never been any clear distinction between broad & wide although there are conventions of use but they vary widely (and presumably in some places broadly) by geographical region.  Related and sometimes synonymous words include deep, expansive, full, large, vast, comprehensive, extensive, far-reaching, sweeping, universal, wide, wide-ranging, clear, explicit, straightforward, radical, improper, indecent & roomy.  Broad is a noun & adjective, broadly is an adverb; broadness is a noun, broaden is a verb, broadening is a noun & verb and broadest & broadish are adjectives; the noun plural is broads.    

Circa 1300, broad also had the specific meaning "breadth", now obsolete, which was from broad the adjective.  The sense of "shallow, reedy lake formed by the expansion of a river over a flat surface" was a Norfolk dialect word from the 1650s and broad had assumed its (broad) meaning as "the broad (wide) part" of anything by 1741.  The broad-brim hat was first described in the 1680s and the phrase “broad-brimmed” or “broad-brimmer” was eighteenth & nineteenth slang for a "Quaker male", so described because of their characteristic attire.  Broad-minded (in the sense of open-minded, liberal, less judgmental) was from the 1590s but this abstract mental sense of broad existed also in Old English as bradnes which meant both "breadth" & "liberality".

German broadsword, Waloon pattern, circa 1650.

Some swordsmiths insist the only true broadsword is one of the “basket-hilted swords”, characterized by a basket-shaped guard at the hilt which protects the hand, an elaboration of the quillons added to swords' cross-guards since the later Middle Ages.  What everybody else now calls the broadsword is a bladed weapon of the early modern era (sixteenth-seventeenth century), the construct in Old English being brad + swurd and, exclusively a battlefield weapon, they were always distinguished from rapiers and other dueling swords by their wide and often long & thick blades.

The term broadsheet was first used to describe a newspaper in 1705 when the distinguishing characteristic was being a “large sheet of paper printed on one side only”; by 1831 the usual phrase was “"a broadsheet newspaper" which in the twentieth century evolved into a distinction between the sober publications of record, reflection and reporting (The Times of London, The New York Times, The Manchester Guardian etc) and the popular tabloid press concerned with entertainment, sport and (increasingly) celebrity culture (the News of the World, The Sun, the New York News etc), based on the former being printed in larger formats, the latter half-sized (tabloid in printer’s jargon.  Even when some broadsheets switched to the smaller format, the phraseology remained and seemed to have survived even where some have abandoned print editions entirely, tabloid journalism still something simultaneously popular and disreputable.

Lindsay Lohan on Broadway, attending the production MJ The Musical, New York, July 2022.

Broadway (like High Street or Main Road) became a common street name apparently as early as circa 1300, applied obviously to particularly wide roads or streets, the allusive use for "New York’s theater district" dating from 1881.  The derivative “off broadway” (sometime with initial capitals) described smaller theatres in the New York City area, those with fewer than 300 seats, or a production in such a theater, usually away from the "Broadway" theater district and which operated under special rules from the theatrical unions which permitted productions to be mounted at much lower cost.  Use of off-broadway was first noted in 1953 as the volume of productions began greatly to expand in the buoyant post war economy and off-off & off-off-off (etc) broadway followed, the number of “offs” hinting progressively at the diminishing size of the budget, theatre and reputations of those associated with the production.

Broadcasting in the modern understanding of the word attained critical mass first in the 1920s as medium-wave AM radio became popular as the cost of vacuum tube radio transmitters and receivers fell to affordable levels.  Broadcasting was based on the idea in agriculture of broad-sowing, the casting of seeds over a broad area and was electronic communication on a one-to-many basis, as opposed to earlier radio, telephone, and telegraph models which were one/few to one/few.  Although the technology and the distribution platforms have since much evolved, broadcasting remains conceptually the same but the technological changes have greatly affected the behavior of audiences and much of what “broadcasters” now do is really stranded narrowcasting, the content designed not for the large-scale, even nation-wide catchments which once were available but aimed instead at specific demographics also served by the narrowcasters proper.  So changed is the environment that the terms are now less useful than when there were clear distinctions between them.

Dean Martin (1917-1995) and Frank Sinatra (1915-1998) carry "strike" signs demanding "Free Broads" as part of a gag during a show at the Sands' Copa Room, Las Vegas, 1960.

Although the "rat pack" persona was cultivated as something edgy and anti-establishment, their audience was politically conservative and, by the 1960s, part of an older generation which mostly didn't approve of young people marching with protest signs.  For a couple of old pros playing Las Vegas, this was an easy laugh and, by the standards of the time, self-deprecating.

The apparently etymologically baffling use of broad to describe a woman with some suggestion of promiscuity has attracted speculation.  It’s been suggested it might be an alteration of bride, especially through influence of the cognate German Braut, which was used in a similar sense (young woman, hussy) and there was the Middle High German brūt (concubine) but, especially given it came to be noted as a generalized slang term for women only circa 1911 in US use, etymologists prefer to link the development to the earlier slang “abroadwife”, used to mean both “woman who lives or travels without her husband" and “woman maintained in another place by a man and unknown to his wife”.  It’s now a dated form, used sometimes ironically but has often been misapplied with a suggestion of prostitution.  Because of these negative associations, and the increasing popularity of women's athletics, the name of the track and field “broad jump” (dating from 1863) was changed to “long jump”, beginning in the US in 1967 and soon adopted by athletics federations worldwide.

Some broadband is more broad than others: Indicative speed (January 2022) of internet connections in selected countries based on Ookla’s speedtest.net data, the informal standard for consumer-level speed testing.

The noun broadband actually dates from the 1620s in various senses from dressmaking to engineering.  It was used in electronics from 1956 with the meaning "a band having a wide range of frequencies" but the now most familiar use is as a descriptor of high-speed internet access.  Although the term broadband had since the 1970s been used in the technical language of the then embryonic industry of networking and distributed communications, it was little known by the public until the first standards were published for Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line (ADSL), a consumer-level version of digital subscriber line (DSL) technology.  Ever since, it’s been used in the sense of “high-speed internet” but except for some local (and usually quickly outdated) legislated definitions, it’s never had a universal or even generally accepted meaning beyond the very early implementations when it was understood to imply a connection faster than the fastest service attainable by a single (8000/8000 baud; V.92; 56.0/48.0 kbit/s down/up) analogue modem connected with a conventional phone line (untwisted copper pair (UTP-Cat3)) which was usually accepted to be 56 kbit/s.  That soon was not a great deal of help and now, unless in a jurisdiction where use of the term broadband requires the maintenance of minimum up & download speeds, it’s really just an advertising term and unless a service so advertised turns out to be so slow that the use might be held to be deceptive or misleading, is often little more than “mere puffery”.  Hotels which in the 1990s and early 2000s spent a lot of money to install the hardware and software to support what was then “broadband” which they advertised as such soon, faced complaints as rapid advances in technology rendered their infrastructure quickly obsolescent and slow, the only solution sometimes to replace all the equipment although many instead took advantage of the profit-sharing industry which emerged, third-parties handling the installation and support, the hotel taking just a commission on total revenue.  Just as a precaution, some gave up on advertising “broadband” and instead offered the even more vague “hi-speed” which definitely meant nothing in particular.     

Contemporary art museum The Broad, Grand Avenue, Los Angeles.  The building's name is a reference not to the architecture but the philanthropists Eli (1933-2021) & Edythe (b 1936) Broad, who paid for it and provided the core of the collections exhibited.  It opened in September 2015, the architecture generally well-received.

Broadcloth (also as broad-cloth) was a "fine woolen cloth used in making men's garments" and dates from the early fifteenth century, the name derived from its width (usually 60 inches (1.5m)).  The phrase “broad daylight” emerged in the late fourteenth century and broad was first applied to speech and accents during the 1530s. To be “broad in the beam” is to be overweight, the term, predictably, applied almost exclusively to women.  To have “broad shoulders” suggests an ability to take criticism, or accept responsibility, an allusion to the figure of Atlas from Greek mythology who was condemned to forever carry on his shoulders the weight of the world.  In admiralty jargon, “broad on the beam” is a nautical bearing 90° to the heading of a vessel while “broad on the bow” is a bearing 45° to the heading of a vessel.  Broadacre farming or agriculture is a generalized reference to activities undertaken on large-scale open areas as opposed to smaller, fenced enclosures and can be used to describe either cropping or animal production.  The expression, like “mileage” or “tons” has survived metrification; “broadhectare” does exist as jargon in the field of residential land supply but is not widely used.

The Anglicans

Some time ago, the ever-entertaining Anglican Church, sort of formalized their three warring factions as the low and lazy, the broad and hazy and the high and crazy:

The Low and Lazy

Like the high churchers, the low lot still believe in God but, their time not absorbed plotting and scheming or running campaigns to stamp out gay clergy and opposing the ordination of women, they actually have time to pray, which they do, often.  The evangelical types come from among the low and don’t approve of fancy rituals, Romish ways or anything smelling of popery.  Instead, they like services where there’s clapping, dancing and what sounds like country & western music with sermons telling them it’s Godly to buy things like big TVs and surf-skis.

The Broad and Hazy

The broad church is more a club than a church, something like the Tory Party at prayer.  The parishioners will choose the church they (occasionally) attend on the same basis as their golf club, driving miles if need be to find a congregation acceptably free of racial and cultural DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion).  They’re interested not at all in theology or anything too abstract so sermons are preached to please the bourgeoisie.  The broad church stands for most things in general and nothing in particular, finding most disputes in Anglicanism baffling; they just can't see what all the fuss is about.

The High and Crazy

The high church has clergy who love dressing up like The Spice Girls, burning incense and chanting the medieval liturgy in Latin.  They disapprove of about everything that’s happened since the 1662 edition of the Book of Common Prayer and believe there’d be less sin were there still burnings at the stake.  Most high church clergy wish Pope Pius IX was still running the show from Rome and some act as though he’s still there.

Of money

All will be pleased to know there is narrow money and broad money.  Narrow money includes notes and coins in circulation and bank deposits (if available to conduct transactions).  Broad money includes all narrow money and other liquid assets that can be used to buy goods and services.  Collectively, the money circulating in an economy is called money supply, movements in which are tracked and sometimes manipulated governments and central banks.  There are economists who insist the distinction between narrow and broad money is mainly theoretical and they have a point in that the relationship between national wealth and (1) physical notes and coins and (2) the notion of asset backing (such as a gold standard) are both now somewhat abstract and the money supply can now be expanded without the effects of the physical economy which would once have been inevitable but the measures are still of great interest, as is the strange fact that the actual definitions of money used by governments and central banks in major trading economies vary from country to country.

The United States

The US Federal Reserve provides only two main measures of money M1 (narrow) and M2 (broad).  M1 consists of currency in circulation, travelers’ checks of nonbank issuers, demand deposits, and other checkable deposits (eg negotiable order of withdrawal accounts at depository institutions).  M2 is M1 plus savings deposits and money market deposit accounts, time deposit accounts below $100,000, and balances in retail money market mutual funds.  The interesting thing about the US is that the Fed’s M1 & M2 excludes a lot of what most economists regards as money but it’s very difficult to estimate how much, all agreeing only that it’s big number.

The Euro Zone

The European Central Bank (ECB) publishes M1, M2 & M3, each measure becoming progressively broader.  M1 includes currency in circulation plus overnight deposits.  M2 is M1 plus deposits redeemable at notice of up to three months and deposits with an agreed maturity of up to two years.  M3 is M2 plus repurchase agreements, money market fund shares, money market paper, and debt securities issued with a maturity of fewer than two years.

The United Kingdom

The Bank of England uses four measures of money, M0, M2, M4, and M3H, M0 the narrowest, M4 the broadest.  M0 is currency in circulation plus bankers’ deposits held by the Bank of England.  M2 is M0 plus deposits held in retail banks.  M4 is M2 plus certificates of deposits, and wholesale bank and building society deposits.  The mysterious M3H is a parity device which exists to allow the Bank of England to align their reporting for statistical purposes with the money supply measures published by the ECB and this is M4 plus foreign currency deposits in banks and building societies.

Australia

The Reserve Bank of Australia used to use M1, M2 & M3 but now publishes M1, M3 & Broad Money.  M1 is currency in circulation plus bank current deposits from private non-bank entities.  M3 is M1 plus other deposits from building societies and credit unions with banks.  Broad Money is M3 plus borrowings from the private sector by non-bank depository corporations excluding holdings of currency and deposits of non-bank depository corporations.

Japan

The Bank of Japan is a monetary classicist and publishes M1, M2, and M3, where M1 is the narrowest and M3 the broadest.  M1 includes currency in circulation plus deposits.  M2 is M1, plus certificates of deposit.  M3 is M2 plus savings and deposits at financial institutions and post offices.

For countries which run modern economies with convertible currencies and a high degree of interoperability and (usually), little (at least by historic standards) in the way of exchange controls, it may seem strange that the definitions of money vary to the extent they do, the only feature of commonality really that each maintains a measurable concept of narrow and broad money.  Only a few central banks, such as the Bank of England, include a device with which those interested in such things can align the numbers more accurately to compare one with another; it’s almost as if the central banks and governments like some vagueness in the system.

In theory there need not be a direct relationship between the volume of the money supply and its value expressed as purchasing power but the two values do typically move in the same direction.  German children during the hyper-inflation experienced in the Weimar Republic in 1923 would play with literally trillions, using bundles of currency with a face value in the billions (of the then current Papiermark) as toy building blocks.  Although the purposes for which it was originally set up have long been overtaken by events, the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) still exists (which is interesting in itself) and although the BIS organizes interesting conferences and seminars and publish a wealth of meaty material, it’d be an interesting task for them to devise a standardized money supply model which could augment (ie not replace) the machinery to which the central banks would no doubt cling.  Even if restricted to members of the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), it would be an interesting data-set to align with other charts but the chances of this seem remote.  It might frighten the horses.