plank, n.² — Green’s Dictionary of Slang

plank n.²

[SE plank, both lit. and fig. uses based on ...two short planks under thick as... adj.]

1. (Aus.) a surf board.

1962		Aus. Women’s Weekly 24 Oct. (Supplement) 3/3: Plank, any type of surfboard .
1964		J. Severson Modern Surfing 175: Plank, name given to heavy boards, usually referring to the redwood giants ridden prior to the 1950s .

2. (also plankbrain) a fool.

1980		T. McClenaghan Submariners I i: spider: He sounds like a right wanker. cock: Exactly [...] This is a fucking nuclear boat and it’s full of planks like that.
1994		J. O’Connor Secret World of the Irish Male (1995) 203: All I can remember is this big thick English plankbrain [...] getting on my nerves.
2000		J.J. Connolly Layer Cake 75: What she’s doing with a plank like Sidney fuck only knows.
2004		N. ‘Razor’ Smith A Few Kind Words and a Loaded Gun 53: We don’t want to know what your mummy calls you, you plank.

3. (S.Afr.) an Afrikaner.

2005

A. Lovejoy Acid Alex 17: The same kid taught me [...] all the words for Rockspiders – Crunchies, Hairybacks, Clutchplates, Planks, Ropes, Boneheads, Durchmen – Afrikaners-vrot-bananas. [Ibid.] 194: I realise this stupid plank cunt just doesn’t get it.

4. see stick n. (8)

SE in slang uses

In compounds

plank-spanker (n.)

a guitarist.

1998		B. Hinton Elvis Costello 200: What they called their Blue Oyster Cult impression, with multiple ‘plank spankers’.
2004		J. Sherratt One, Two and Even 171: ‘Used to be a plank-spanker myself, messed with one of these when I was a kid.’ The Deacon was holding the instrument across his chest plucking the strings.
2004		G. Marshall The Cut the Crap Guide to the Guitar 6: From the Stones to the Strokes, the coolest people in music have been the axe-wielders, the plank-spankers and the guitar Gods.

In phrases

make the plank (v.) [i.e. to lie down flat]

(US gay) to take the passive role in anal sex.

1965

Guild Dict. Homosexual Terms 29: ‘making the plank’ (v.): Means that the individual engages in the passive role in anal intercourse. (Prison slang that is sometimes heard aboard merchant ships.).

slap the plank (v.) [var. on slap five under five n.²]

(US black) exchanging ritualized slaps of greeting, congratulation etc.

1983

R. Klein Jailhouse Jargon and Street Sl. [unpub. ms.].

take a soft plank (v.)

to sleep in the open air on an impromptu ‘bed’.

c.1850

Peeping Tom (London) 33 132/2: There was nothing for it but to ‘take a soft plank’ in [...] Covent-garden.

plank n.2

SE in slang uses

In compounds

In phrases

plank n.²