Definition of "scheme" []

• A systematic plan of action: "Did you ever carry out your scheme of writing a series of sonnets embodying all the great epochs of art?” ( Edith Wharton). (noun)
• A secret or devious plan; a plot. See Synonyms at plan. (noun)
• An orderly combination of related parts: an irrigation scheme with dams, reservoirs, and channels. (noun)
• A chart, diagram, or outline of a system or object. (noun)
• To plot: scheming their revenge. (verb-transitive)

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.

• "... and she said: * scheme and plot, plot and scheme*"
• "Very elaborately he devised a funding scheme which, taken in connection with his system of issues, was in effect what in these days would be called an "_interconvertibility scheme_" By various degrees of persuasion or force, -- the guillotine looming up in the background, -- holders of _assignats_ were urged to convert them into evidence of national debt, bearing interest at five per cent, with the understanding that if more paper were afterward needed more would be issued."
• "Yet, if taken literally, the Ervin scheme is a scheme of presidential subordination."