Plural of 'plate'; flat, round dishes used for serving food; also thin, flat pieces of metal or other material.
From Old French 'plate' meaning 'a piece of metal,' possibly from Spanish or Catalan. The word originally meant a flat piece of precious metal before it meant a dish.
The word 'plate' shows how words traveled between languages through trade—as Spanish and Italian merchants traded with England, the word for flat metal sheets came along too. Plates as dishes came later, but the name stuck because they're flat metal-like surfaces.
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