scheme / skēm/ • n. a large-scale systematic plan or arrangement for attaining some particular object or putting a particular idea into effect: a clever marketing scheme. ∎  a secret or underhanded plan; a plot: police uncovered a scheme to steal paintings worth more than $250,000. ∎  a particular ordered system or arrangement: a classical rhyme scheme.• v. [intr.] make plans, esp. in a devious way or with intent to do something illegal or wrong: he schemed to bring about the collapse of the government. PHRASES: the scheme of things a supposed or apparent overall system, within which everything has a place and in relation to which individual details are ultimately to be assessed: in the overall scheme of things, we didn't do badly.ORIGIN: mid 16th cent. (denoting a figure of speech): from Latin schema, from Greek. An early sense was ‘diagram of the position of celestial objects,’ giving rise to ‘diagram, outline.’

scheme †figure of rhetoric XVI; †diagram; analytical or tabular statement; plan, design XVII. — L. schēma — Gr. schêma form, figure.
Hence vb. XVIII. So schematic XVIII. — modL. schēmaticus, f. schēma-, schēmat-, schematism XVII.

SCHEME A dialect of LISP, used particularly in teaching computer science.