Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A flat plate, slab, or disk that is ornamented or engraved for mounting, as on a wall for decoration or on a monument for information.
  • noun A small pin or brooch worn as an ornament or a badge of membership.
  • noun A deposit of fatty material on the inner lining of an arterial wall, characteristic of atherosclerosis.
  • noun A scaly patch on a body part, especially the skin.
  • noun A film of mucus and bacteria on a tooth surface.
  • noun A lesion found in the brain tissue of people with Alzheimer's disease, consisting mainly of beta-amyloid protein and degenerating nerve tissue.
  • noun A sharply defined zone of demyelination in the brain characteristic of multiple sclerosis.
  • noun A clear, often round patch of lysed cells in an otherwise opaque layer of a bacteria or cell culture.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun An ornamental plate; a brooch; the plate of a clasp.
  • noun A square, oblong, or circular tablet of bronze or silver, the largest dimension of which extends to three or four inches, ornamented in relief with some religious, mythological, allegorical, or decorative subject.
  • noun Any tablet or distinctly flat plate of metal or porcelain, whether plain or ornamented; partieularly. an ornamental circular plate intended for a wall-decoration. See cut in next column.
  • noun The especial decoration of a high rank in many honorary orders. See star, insignia, order, 6 .
  • noun In anatomy and zoology, a small flat object of round figure, as a blood-disk; a little plate. Also plaquette
  • noun A patch.
  • noun A billon or silver coin current in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries in Brabant, Liège, Lorraine, and France.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun Any flat, thin piece of metal, clay, ivory, or the like, used for ornament, or for painting pictures upon, as a slab, plate, dish, or the like, hung upon a wall; also, a smaller decoration worn on the person, as a brooch.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun Any flat, thin piece of metal, clay, ivory, or the like, used for ornament, or for painting pictures upon, as a slab, plate, dish, or the like, hung upon a wall; also, a smaller decoration worn on the person, as a brooch.
  • noun uncountable An accumulation of biofilm, or bacteria on teeth.
  • noun uncountable, medicine Atheroma, an accumulation in artery walls made up of macrophage cells and debris containing lipids, (cholesterol and fatty acids), calcium, and connective tissue.
  • noun biology A clearing in a bacterial lawn caused by a virus.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun (pathology) a small abnormal patch on or inside the body
  • noun a memorial made of brass

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[French, from Old French, metal plate, perhaps from Middle Dutch placke, disk, patch.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Borrowing from French plaque, derivative of plaquer ("to plate"), from Middle Dutch placken ("to patch, beat metal into a thin plate"), from placke ("disk, patch, stain"), from Old Dutch *plagga ("patch"), from Proto-Germanic *plaggan (“patch”). Cognate with Middle Low German placke, plagge ("small stain, scraps, rags, thin grass"), German Placken ("spot, patch"), Eastern Frisian plak, plakke ("a blow, slap"), Swedish plagg ("clothing, garment"). See plack.

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Examples

  • He pointed to the empty space on the door where a name plaque should be.

    A Bad Day’s Work Nora McFarland 2010

  • The piece is created by following a simple set of instructions, stated adjacent to the art on the title plaque:

    Build Blog » Instruction Art 2009

  • And that is a powerful drug that can get in there and can break up what we call plaque, it's stuff that is clogging up arteries, whether it's an artery to a heart that's causing an heart attack or an artery to the brain that's causing a stroke.

    CNN Transcript May 17, 2008 2008

  • Though a title plaque and an opportunity to extend their season was the primary prize, Rough Riders senior outside hitter Megan Velasquez said that wasn't all that was at stake for she and her teammates.

    Greeley Tribune - Top Stories 2009

  • That made the game a de facto national championship and allowed Nixon to present a title plaque to the winner.

    unknown title 2009

  • Chang Jiechi’s eyes remained on his son for a long moment then slid to the name plaque on the improvised altar.

    The Stone Monkey Jeffery Deaver 2002

  • Chang Jiechi’s eyes remained on his son for a long moment then slid to the name plaque on the improvised altar.

    The Stone Monkey Jeffery Deaver 2002

  • Chang Jiechi’s eyes remained on his son for a long moment then slid to the name plaque on the improvised altar.

    The Stone Monkey Jeffery Deaver 2002

  • Chang Jiechi’s eyes remained on his son for a long moment then slid to the name plaque on the improvised altar.

    A Lincoln Rhyme eBook Boxed Set Jeffery Deaver 2001

  • (Bubonic plaque is endemic among the rodents that were be hunted, so you DID NOT want to skin a sick animal, and you could not know if a trapped animal had been sick.)

    Coyote Blog » Blog Archive » Trial By Ordeal 2010

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