Place

Place (through Fr. from Lat. platea, street; Gr. 7rXaris, wide), a definite position in space, whether of limited or unlimited extent, situation or locality; also position in a series or rank; or an office, or employment, particularly one in the service of a government. Special applications are to an open space in a town, a group of buildings, row of houses, or as the name of a residence or manor-house. In certain cases this latter use accounts for the occurrence of parts of a town being known as Place, e.g. Ely Place in London, formerly the site of the town residence of the bishops of Ely. A "place of arms" (Fr. place d'armes), in fortification, means the wide spaces (suitable for the assembly of troops for a sortie) made by the salients and re-entrants of the covered way. The phrase is also used in a strategic sense to express an entrenched camp or fortress in which a large army can be collected under cover previous to taking the field.