plates

1. 1
   noun

   Plural of plate.

   He carried a tall pile of plates from the kitchen to the dining room.

   The museum displayed several decorated ceramic plates from the dynasty.

   Note

   A regular plural, made with -s, that serves every countable meaning of plate: dishes, courses, servings, flat pieces of uniform thickness. When the word means dishes taken together it is uncountable, so it has no plural. A cupboard holds plates, but a household's tableware as a whole is simply its plate. The same spelling also does duty as the present-tense verb, and only the grammar of the sentence tells them apart.

2. 2
   nouncountableplural

   The flat metal signs attached to the front and rear of a vehicle that display its registration number.

   Thieves had swapped the plates to disguise the stolen vehicle.

   She ordered custom plates with her initials on them.

   Similarplate

   Note

   A vehicle's registration signs are usually spoken of in the plural, because front and rear are treated as a pair. Thieves swap plates, and drivers order custom plates. The singular plate serves as the same word when only one sign is meant. As a shortened stand-in for number plate, it is the everyday choice in casual talk about cars.

3. 3
   verb

   Third-person singular simple present of plate.

   She plates each course with careful attention to color and balance.

   The factory plates the steel fittings to protect them from rust.

   Note

   The -s form of a verb with an unusually wide reach across trades. A chef plates a dish, a factory plates steel with a thin coat of metal, a runner plates a run, and a ticketing agent plates a ticket on a particular airline. The context decides which trade is meant, never the form. It shares its spelling with the plural noun, but as a verb it always follows a singular subject.

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