- as opposed to a causey, which is paved with cobblestones, a road or pavement might be paved with flagstones or plainstanes. The word is sometimes used to indicate a paved side-walk or pavement, as in the following quotation from J. G. Lockhart's Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott (1815):
Better walking on the beach at Worthing than on the plainstanes of Prince's Street, for the weather is very severe here indeed.
A plainstane could also be a paved area, often the main square of a town. The spelling plainstone also exists, but the use of the word in any form is largely restricted to Scotland.