There are many contexts in which the two English nouns “plan” and “scheme”, or their counterparts in other languages, can be used more or less interchangeably. An architect may submit a scheme or a plan for modernising an office block, or a traffic engineer for changing the circulation system in a town, A company may design a pension plan, or more often a pension scheme, for its employees. Most
... [Show full abstract] dictionaries attempt to define each of the nouns with reference to the other.