plate [ME] A plate first described a flat, thin sheet, usually made of metal. It goes back, via medieval Latin plata ‘plate armour’, to Greek platus ‘flat’. Plate as in dinner plate is from the Old French form, plat which meant both platter (ME from the same source) ‘large dish’, and ‘dish of meat’. Plateau [L18th] is from Old French platel, a ‘little plate’. Platform [M16th] is from French plateforme ‘ground plan’ (literally ‘flat shape’), and platitude [E19th] is from plat in the sense of a dull, flat form of expression. Early explorers of Australia found they had to find names for many new animals. They turned to local languages for some names (see australian english), but for others they invented new Latin and Greek terms as in the duck-billed platypus. The name given to the animal by George Shaw in 1799 in his Naturalist’s Miscellany is a Latinate form of the Greek platupous ‘flat-footed’ formed from platus and pous ‘foot’, describing the shape of its large, webbed feet. See also plain.