home plate

American

noun

Baseball.

the base at which the batter stands and which a base runner must reach safely in order to score a run, typically a five-sided slab of whitened rubber set at ground level at the front corner of the diamond.

home plate British

noun

Also called: plate. home. home base. baseball a flat often five-sided piece of hard rubber or other material that serves to define the area over which the pitcher must throw the ball for a strike and that a base runner must safely reach on his way from third base to score a run

"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Etymology

Origin of home plate

An Americanism dating back to 1870–75

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.

How much baseball culture revolves around the home plate ump?

From The Wall Street Journal • Mar. 26, 2026

An out at home plate by history-making inches.

From Los Angeles Times • Nov. 27, 2025

It was the longest of his three, landing on the Dodger Stadium right-field roof 469 feet from home plate.

From Los Angeles Times • Nov. 22, 2025

Varsho then crossed home plate after an Ernie Clement sacrifice fly to make it 3-1.

From Barron's • Oct. 30, 2025

We stopped a distance from it, maybe the distance from home plate to the left field fence in a regular stadium.

From "Fallen Angels" by Walter Dean Myers

Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023