Source : Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913)

Plantation \Plan*ta"tion\, n. [L. plantatio: cf. F. plantation.]
   1. The act or practice of planting, or setting in the earth
      for growth. [R.]

   2. The place planted; land brought under cultivation; a piece
      of ground planted with trees or useful plants; esp., in
      the United States and West Indies, a large estate
      appropriated to the production of the more important
      crops, and cultivated by laborers who live on the estate;
      as, a cotton plantation; a coffee plantation.

   3. An original settlement in a new country; a colony.

            While these plantations were forming in Connecticut.
                                                  --B. Trumbull.

Source : WordNet®

plantation
     n 1: an estate where cash crops are grown on a large scale
          (especially in tropical areas)
     2: a newly established colony (especially in the colonization
        of North America); "the practice of sending convicted
        criminals to serve on the Plantations was common in the
        17th century"
     3: garden consisting of a small cultivated wood without
        undergrowth [syn: {grove}, {woodlet}, {orchard}]