Everyday LifeGreek → English
Plate
/pleɪt/noun
A shallow dish from which food is eaten or served.
The Greek roots
πλατύς
platýs
flat, broad
Literally: “the flat thing”
Follow a root:πλατύς4 words
The story of the word
Late Latin built plattus, flat, out of the Greek adjective, a word classical Latin never had. Old French made plate a thin sheet of metal from it, which is where armour plate comes from. The dinner sense is late, fifteenth century; before that most people ate off trenchers of stale bread. Plateau, platform and platypus all go back to the same broad Greek adjective.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → Vulgar Latin → Old French → English
- First recorded
- 13th century
The same roots elsewhere
Other languages reached for exactly the same Greek pieces.
Same family
plateauplatformplatitudeplace
In a sentence
He carried three plates in one hand and dropped none of them.