Other forms: schemes, scheming, schemed
A scheme is an organized plan. In Britain that is a flat, official word — a pension scheme, a recycling scheme, a scheme to widen the road — and behind it stands a council, a company or a government department.
The rest of the time it is sinister: a scheme to defraud investors, a get-rich-quick scheme, a scheme to get the neighbour's cat blamed. American English leans on that second reading, so 'a new government scheme' sounds shady to an American ear and entirely routine to a British one. The verb is suspicious wherever you are — to scheme is to plot in secret, and calling a colleague scheming is not a compliment. A third sense is neutral and structural: an arrangement of parts, as in a colour scheme or a rhyme scheme. The adjective schematic means reduced to a diagram.
1nounschemeAn official or organized plan, especially one run by a government or company.
“The council launched a scheme to insulate older houses for free.”
synonyms: programme, initiative
2nounplotA secret or dishonest plan.
“The whole scheme collapsed when one of them went to the police.”
3nounarrangementAn arrangement of parts working as a system, such as colours or rhymes.
“The colour scheme was three shades of grey and one alarming yellow.”
4verbsecretlyTo plan something secretly and dishonestly.
“They schemed for months to get him off the board.”
Too few real examples of this word to estimate which sense is commonest.
Also accepted in games: plot
Scheme came through Medieval Latin schema from Greek skhema, form or shape, which grew out of the verb ekho, to hold — the shape a thing holds itself in. English owns the Greek noun twice: schema is the same word kept whole, and sketch belongs to the same family. A scheme is a shape drawn onto the future.
Ancient Greek
σχῆμα — form, shape
Medieval Latin
schēma — figure, form
Middle English
scheame
English, today
scheme
Built from
From late Middle English scheame, from Medieval Latin schēma (“figure, form”), from Ancient Greek σχῆμα (“form, shape”), from ἔχω (“to hold”). a doublet of schema. Compare sketch.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA