Plate

Plate - (Webster's 1828 Dictionary)

PLATE, n. [L. Latus, with the radical sense of laid, spread.]

1. A piece of metal, flat or extended in breadth.

2. Armor of plate, composed of broad pieces, and thus distinguished from mail.

3. A piece of wrought silver, as a dish or other shallow vessel; hence, vessels of silver; wrought silver in general. Plate, by the laws of some states, is subject to a tax by the ounce.

4. A small shallow vessel, made of silver or other metal, or of earth glazed and baked, from which provisions are eaten at table. A wooden plate is called a trencher.

5. The prize given for the best horse in a race.

6. In architecture, the piece of timber which supports the ends of the rafters. [See Platform.]

PLATE, v.t. To cover or overlay with plate or with metal; used particularly of silver; as plated vessels.

1. To arm with plate or metal for defense; as, to plate sin with gold.

Why plated in habiliments of war?

2. To adorn with place; as a plated harness.

3. To beat into thin flat pieces or lamens.

plat: A term seemingly not used in the Bible for a dish as it is so commonly used at present, but always for a tablet or sheet of metal.

(1) tsits (Ex 28:36; 39:30; Le 8:9), a plate of gold on the front of the mitre of the high priest. The name seems to have been given because of the radiance of the object.

(2) pach (Ex 39:3; Nu 16:38), of plates or sheets of metal produced by hammering.

(3) luach, used for tablets or tables of stone (Ex 24:12, etc.), but in 1Ki 7:36 for the metal plates on the bases of the lavers in the temple. The word ceren, is rendered "plate" in 1Ki 7:30 the King James Version, manifestly incorrectly, the Revised Version (British and American) "axle."

Walter R. Betteridge