Plate n.
 1. A flat, or nearly flat, piece of metal, the thickness of which is small in comparison with the other dimensions; a thick sheet of metal; as, a steel plate.
 2. Metallic armor composed of broad pieces.
    Mangled . . . through plate and mail.   --Milton.
 3. Domestic vessels and utensils, as flagons, dishes, cups, etc., wrought in gold or silver.
 4. Metallic ware which is plated, in distinction from that which is silver or gold throughout.
 5. A small, shallow, and usually circular, vessel of metal or wood, or of earth glazed and baked, from which food is eaten at table.
 6.  A piece of money, usually silver money. [Obs.] “Realms and islands were as plates dropp'd from his pocket.”
 7. A piece of metal on which anything is engraved for the purpose of being printed; hence, an impression from the engraved metal; as, a book illustrated with plates; a fashion plate.
 8. A page of stereotype, electrotype, or the like, for printing from; as, publisher's plates.
 9. That part of an artificial set of teeth which fits to the mouth, and holds the teeth in place. It may be of gold, platinum, silver, rubber, celluloid, etc.
 10. Arch. A horizontal timber laid upon a wall, or upon corbels projecting from a wall, and supporting the ends of other timbers; also used specifically of the roof plate which supports the ends of the roof trusses or, in simple work, the feet of the rafters.
 11. Her. A roundel of silver or tinctured argent.
 12. Photog. A sheet of glass, porcelain, metal, etc., with a coating that is sensitive to light.
 13. A prize giving to the winner in a contest.
 14. Baseball A small five-sided area (enveloping a diamond-shaped area one foot square) beside which the batter stands and which must be touched by some part of a player on completing a run; -- called also home base, or home plate.
 15.  One of the thin parts of the bricket of an animal.
 16.  A very light steel racing horsehoe.
 17.  Loosely, a sporting contest for a prize; specif., in horse racing, a race for a prize, the contestants not making a stake.
 18.  Skins for fur linings of garments, sewed together and roughly shaped, but not finally cut or fitted. [Furrier's Cant]
 19.  Hat Making The fine nap (as of beaver, hare's wool, musquash, nutria, or English black wool) on a hat the body of which is of an inferior substance.
 Note: ☞ Plate is sometimes used in an adjectival sense or in combination, the phrase or compound being in most cases of obvious signification; as, plate basket or plate-basket, plate rack or plate-rack.
 Home plate. Baseball See Home base, under Home.
 Plate armor. (a) See Plate, n., 2. (b) Strong metal plates for protecting war vessels, fortifications, and the like.
 Plate bone, the shoulder blade, or scapula.
 Plate girder, a girder, the web of which is formed of a single vertical plate, or of a series of such plates riveted together.
 Plate glass. See under Glass.
 Plate iron, wrought iron plates.
 Plate layer, a workman who lays down the rails of a railway and fixes them to the sleepers or ties.
 Plate mark, a special mark or emblematic figure stamped upon gold or silver plate, to indicate the place of manufacture, the degree of purity, and the like; thus, the local mark for London is a lion.
 Plate paper, a heavy spongy paper, for printing from engraved plates. --Fairholt.
 Plate press, a press with a flat carriage and a roller, -- used for printing from engraved steel or copper plates.
 Plate printer, one who prints from engraved plates.
 Plate printing, the act or process of printing from an engraved plate or plates.
 Plate tracery. Arch. See under Tracery.
 Plate wheel Mech., a wheel, the rim and hub of which are connected by a continuous plate of metal, instead of by arms or spokes.


 Glass n.
 1. A hard, brittle, translucent, and commonly transparent substance, white or colored, having a conchoidal fracture, and made by fusing together sand or silica with lime, potash, soda, or lead oxide. It is used for window panes and mirrors, for articles of table and culinary use, for lenses, and various articles of ornament.
 Note: ☞ Glass is variously colored by the metallic oxides; thus, manganese colors it violet; copper (cuprous), red, or (cupric) green; cobalt, blue; uranium, yellowish green or canary yellow; iron, green or brown; gold, purple or red; tin, opaque white; chromium, emerald green; antimony, yellow.
 2. Chem. Any substance having a peculiar glassy appearance, and a conchoidal fracture, and usually produced by fusion.
 3. Anything made of glass. Especially: (a) A looking-glass; a mirror. (b) A vessel filled with running sand for measuring time; an hourglass; and hence, the time in which such a vessel is exhausted of its sand.
 She would not live
 The running of one glass.   --Shak.
 (c) A drinking vessel; a tumbler; a goblet; hence, the contents of such a vessel; especially; spirituous liquors; as, he took a glass at dinner. (d) An optical glass; a lens; a spyglass; -- in the plural, spectacles; as, a pair of glasses; he wears glasses. (e) A weatherglass; a barometer.
 Note: ☞ Glass is much used adjectively or in combination; as, glass maker, or glassmaker; glass making or glassmaking; glass blower or glassblower, etc.
 Bohemian glass, Cut glass, etc. See under Bohemian, Cut, etc.
 Crown glass, a variety of glass, used for making the finest plate or window glass, and consisting essentially of silicate of soda or potash and lime, with no admixture of lead; the convex half of an achromatic lens is composed of crown glass; -- so called from a crownlike shape given it in the process of blowing.
 Crystal glass, or Flint glass. See Flint glass, in the Vocabulary.
 Cylinder glass, sheet glass made by blowing the glass in the form of a cylinder which is then split longitudinally, opened out, and flattened.
 Glass of antimony, a vitreous oxide of antimony mixed with sulphide.
 Glass cloth, a woven fabric formed of glass fibers.
 Glass coach, a coach superior to a hackney-coach, hired for the day, or any short period, as a private carriage; -- so called because originally private carriages alone had glass windows. [Eng.] --Smart.
    Glass coaches are [allowed in English parks from which ordinary hacks are excluded], meaning by this term, which is never used in America, hired carriages that do not go on stands.   --J. F. Cooper.
 -- Glass cutter. (a) One who cuts sheets of glass into sizes for window panes, ets. (b) One who shapes the surface of glass by grinding and polishing. (c) A tool, usually with a diamond at the point, for cutting glass.
 Glass cutting. (a) The act or process of dividing glass, as sheets of glass into panes with a diamond. (b) The act or process of shaping the surface of glass by appylying it to revolving wheels, upon which sand, emery, and, afterwards, polishing powder, are applied; especially of glass which is shaped into facets, tooth ornaments, and the like. Glass having ornamental scrolls, etc., cut upon it, is said to be engraved.
 Glass metal, the fused material for making glass.
 Glass painting, the art or process of producing decorative effects in glass by painting it with enamel colors and combining the pieces together with slender sash bars of lead or other metal. In common parlance, glass painting and glass staining (see Glass staining, below) are used indifferently for all colored decorative work in windows, and the like.
 Glass paper, paper faced with pulvirezed glass, and used for abrasive purposes.
 Glass silk, fine threads of glass, wound, when in fusion, on rapidly rotating heated cylinders.
 Glass silvering, the process of transforming plate glass into mirrors by coating it with a reflecting surface, a deposit of silver, or a mercury amalgam.
 Glass soap, or Glassmaker's soap, the black oxide of manganese or other substances used by glass makers to take away color from the materials for glass.
 Glass staining, the art or practice of coloring glass in its whole substance, or, in the case of certain colors, in a superficial film only; also, decorative work in glass.  Cf. Glass painting.
 Glass tears. See Rupert's drop.
 Glass works, an establishment where glass is made.
 Heavy glass, a heavy optical glass, consisting essentially of a borosilicate of potash.
 Millefiore glass. See Millefiore.
 Plate glass, a fine kind of glass, cast in thick plates, and flattened by heavy rollers, -- used for mirrors and the best windows.
 Pressed glass, glass articles formed in molds by pressure when hot.
 Soluble glass Chem., a silicate of sodium or potassium, found in commerce as a white, glassy mass, a stony powder, or dissolved as a viscous, sirupy liquid; -- used for rendering fabrics incombustible, for hardening artificial stone, etc.; -- called also water glass.
 Spun glass, glass drawn into a thread while liquid.
 Toughened glass, Tempered glass, glass finely tempered or annealed, by a peculiar method of sudden cooling by plunging while hot into oil, melted wax, or paraffine, etc.; -- called also, from the name of the inventor of the process, Bastie glass.
 Water glass. Chem. See Soluble glass, above.
 Window glass, glass in panes suitable for windows.


 plate glass
      n : glass formed into large thin sheets [syn: sheet glass]