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Definition of "planchette" []

  • A small triangular board supported by two casters and a vertical pencil that, when lightly touched by the fingertips, is said to spell out subconscious or supernatural messages. (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

Use "planchette" in a sentence
  • "As we returned to the humble huts and partook of sheep-cheese and rakia, I remembered that many of the tribes of my own land believe in planchette and table-turning – consult palmists and globe-gazers, are "Christian Scientists" and "Higher Thoughters" – and reflected that all the training of all the schools had but little removed a large mass of the British public from the intellectual standpoint of High Albania, whereas for open-handed generosity and hospitality the Albanian ranks incomparably higher."
  • "He really believes that he can receive messages from the dead through this very simple contraption: a cardboard chart of all twenty-six letters in the Latin alphabet and all the numbers zero through nine, with a plastic heart-shaped doodad known as a planchette that has three stubby legs and a tiny window of sorts in the middle."
  • "After this the seances were given up but Jacobsen produced an instrument called a planchette and with difficulty persuaded Bickley to try it, which he did after many precautions."