dry plate
Americannoun
-
a glass photographic plate coated with a sensitive emulsion of silver bromide and silver iodide in gelatin.
-
Metallurgy. tin plate having patches of dull finish.
Etymology
Origin of dry plate
First recorded in 1855–60
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Oxymel produced a dry plate that could be kept for days.
From New York Times • Feb. 6, 2014
“You’ll have a new barn in no time,” I said, wiping an already dry plate with a towel.
From "Hattie Big Sky" by Kirby Larson
![]()
The camera consists of a circular brass box, 5� inches in diameter and 1� inches deep, containing a circular vulcanite shutter with two apertures, behind which is placed a circular dry plate.
From Scientific American Supplement, No. 561, October 2, 1886 by Various
So a supersensitive dry plate will often record many thousand stars in a region where the naked eye can see but one.
From Astronomy: The Science of the Heavenly Bodies by Todd, David Peck
You are a perambulating dry plate upon which outside objects produce their images.
From Applied Psychology: Making Your Own World Being the Second of a Series of Twelve Volumes on the Applications of Psychology to the Problems of Personal and Business Efficiency by Hilton, Warren
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.