1.0Glossaryhttps://www.healthbenefitstimes.com/glossaryGlossaryhttps://www.healthbenefitstimes.com/glossary/author/adminglossary/rich600338<blockquote class="wp-embedded-content" data-secret="TcjILXWROA"><a href="https://www.healthbenefitstimes.com/glossary/plate/">Plate</a></blockquote><iframe sandbox="allow-scripts" security="restricted" src="https://www.healthbenefitstimes.com/glossary/plate/embed/#?secret=TcjILXWROA" width="600" height="338" title="“Plate” — Glossary" data-secret="TcjILXWROA" frameborder="0" marginwidth="0" marginheight="0" scrolling="no" class="wp-embedded-content"></iframe><script> /*! This file is auto-generated */ !function(d,l){"use strict";l.querySelector&&d.addEventListener&&"undefined"!=typeof URL&&(d.wp=d.wp||{},d.wp.receiveEmbedMessage||(d.wp.receiveEmbedMessage=function(e){var t=e.data;if((t||t.secret||t.message||t.value)&&!/[^a-zA-Z0-9]/.test(t.secret)){for(var s,r,n,a=l.querySelectorAll('iframe[data-secret="'+t.secret+'"]'),o=l.querySelectorAll('blockquote[data-secret="'+t.secret+'"]'),c=new RegExp("^https?:$","i"),i=0;i<o.length;i++)o[i].style.display="none";for(i=0;i<a.length;i++)s=a[i],e.source===s.contentWindow&&(s.removeAttribute("style"),"height"===t.message?(1e3<(r=parseInt(t.value,10))?r=1e3:~~r<200&&(r=200),s.height=r):"link"===t.message&&(r=new URL(s.getAttribute("src")),n=new URL(t.value),c.test(n.protocol))&&n.host===r.host&&l.activeElement===s&&(d.top.location.href=t.value))}},d.addEventListener("message",d.wp.receiveEmbedMessage,!1),l.addEventListener("DOMContentLoaded",function(){for(var e,t,s=l.querySelectorAll("iframe.wp-embedded-content"),r=0;r<s.length;r++)(t=(e=s[r]).getAttribute("data-secret"))||(t=Math.random().toString(36).substring(2,12),e.src+="#?secret="+t,e.setAttribute("data-secret",t)),e.contentWindow.postMessage({message:"ready",secret:t},"*")},!1)))}(window,document); //# sourceURL=https://www.healthbenefitstimes.com/glossary/wp-includes/js/wp-embed.min.js </script> When I was a child, I was amazed that what my parents usually called plates suddenly transformed into dishes if company came to dinner (and, just as magically, our cutlery became silverware, even though they were the same spoons, forks, and knives as always). The reason why dish, at least in my family, has a slightly greater cachet than plate is unclear: perhaps it is because plate has application to so many other items—such as home plate, name plate, and armour plate—while dish—with the exception of the recent satellite dish—is used almost exclusively in culinary contexts. Alternatively, the higher status of dish may arise from the fact that it, unlike plate, has been used since the sixteenth century to describe an attractive woman: even Shakespeare, in Anthony and Cleopatra, calls Cleopatra an "Egyptian dish." Dish and plate are at least alike in that both derive from Greek sources. With dish, that source is the Greek diskos, the name of a plate of metal thrown great distances during athletic competitions; in fact, further back in history the Greek diskos actually developed from the verb dikein, meaning to throw. In Latin, the Greek diskos evolved into discus, a word that the ancient Romans originally employed to refer to the metal disk thrown by athletes, but that later came to refer to a disk on which food is served, and also to a large disk, supported by legs, at which a person sat to write. English adopted all three of these meanings but gave each its own spelling: discus, dish, and desk. With the word plate, the Greek source is platus, meaning broad or flat. In Vulgar Latin, the Greek platus became plattus, a word that English acquired in the thirteenth century as plate, meaning sheet of metal; not until the mid fifteenth century did the word develop its current culinary sense, by which time dish had been in use for more than seven centuries. The number and variety of other English words that derive from the same source as plate is astonishing. They include platter, plane, plain, plateau, plaza, plan, and even platypus and splat. In one way or another, all these words originally referred to something characterized by flatness.A flat sheet of metal or bone.A flat piece of metal attached to a fractured bone to hold the broken parts together.Flat structure or part (e.g., the neural plate in the embryo, which develops into the neural tube).A thin, flattened part or portion, such as a flattened process of a bone.