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silver plate
silver platenounsilver tableware.
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silver-plate
silver-plateverb (used with object)to coat (base metal) with silver, especially by electroplating.
silver plate
1 Americannoun
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silver tableware.
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a coating of silver, especially one electroplated on base metal.
verb (used with object)
noun
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a thin layer of silver deposited on a base metal
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articles, esp tableware, made of silver plate
verb
Other Word Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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silver-platesimple
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silver-platessimple
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have silver-platedperfect
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has silver-platedperfect
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am silver-platingprogressive
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are silver-platingprogressive
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is silver-platingprogressive
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have been silver-platingperfect progressive
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has been silver-platingperfect progressive
Past
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silver-platedsimple
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had silver-platedperfect
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was silver-platingprogressive
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were silver-platingprogressive
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had been silver-platingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of silver plate
First recorded in 1520–30
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.
See Examples For:
Other items being sold include a silver plate looted from Napoleon's carriage after his 1815 defeat at Waterloo and a wooden vanity case he owned, with razors, a silver toothbrush, scissors and other belongings.
From BBC ● Nov. 18, 2023
In the fresco, it is served on a silver plate and a wine chalice stands next to it.
From Seattle Times ● Jun. 27, 2023
During arti, you stood in front of the gods and offered them light, clutching a silver plate holding ghee-drenched cotton ball flames and marigolds.
From Salon ● Jul. 16, 2022
That would make the silver plate a pretty specific allegory for the Eastern Roman emperor as God’s designated champion on earth, like David, the victorious underdog in the struggle against the Philistine giant.
From Los Angeles Times ● May 27, 2022
“You was always a ignorant child. I wouldn’t have him on a silver plate now. I mean then.”
From "Jacob Have I Loved" by Katherine Paterson
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There would be mismatched antique silver-plate utensils in the kitchen drawers, and the beds would be dressed in neutral-color linens from West Elm and Pine Cone Hill.
From New York Times ● Oct. 1, 2016
Patinated brass handles give Nalata Nalata’s Ihada silver-plate flatware a graceful antique look; $230 for a five-piece set.
From Architectural Digest ● Dec. 5, 2014
Which explains how the Mayfair peeress who asked me for cocktails one day has a villa packed with Vieux Paris silver-plate and Louis XVI armchairs covered in needlepoint scenes from La Fontaine’s “Fables.”
From New York Times ● May 20, 2011
Design becomes art in Lino Sabattini's silver-plate tea and coffee service and Ernest Race's shaped steel-rod chair.
From Time Magazine Archive
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They said there’d been two white twins from America riding ’round Chatham on two white stallions whilst toting two of the fanciest pearl-handle, silver-plate pistols just like the one the Preacher said he found.
From "Elijah of Buxton" by Christopher Paul Curtis
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Tell me of all the riches and jewels—the gold and silver-plates you eat from, the jewelry you have to wear, the rich silks—all of it!
From Ruth Fielding and the Gypsies The Missing Pearl Necklace by Emerson, Alice B.
Brass angel candlesticks scored for $2 apiece at a Palo Alto garage sale flank a silver-plated punch bowl.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jan. 28, 2026
Items that are silver-plated can sometimes be marked as well, although their value is generally have much lower.
From MarketWatch ● Dec. 31, 2025
It was a daguerreotype, an image imprinted on a sheet of silver-plated copper coated in light-sensitive chemicals.
From Seattle Times ● Jan. 22, 2024
He finished with modern glassware and Elsie Green’s overdyed napkin, as well as vintage silver-plated flatware and a red Bakelite knife.
From Washington Post ● Dec. 14, 2022
Sissy was so happy at being divorced so quickly that she sent him a silver-plated pickle dish as a belated wedding present.
From "A Tree Grows in Brooklyn" by Betty Smith
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So in Nashville, Biochemist Paul F. Hahn is trying to fool the body by silver-plating his radio-gold.
From Time Magazine Archive
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There's some fine engraving on the silver-plating, noble sentiment, deftly expressed, and done in the engraver's best style.
From Quiet Talks on John's Gospel by Gordon, S. D. (Samuel Dickey)
For silver-plating the solution consists of the double cyanide of silver and potash, and may be used either hot or cold.
From The New Gresham Encyclopedia Volume 4, Part 2: Ebert to Estremadura by Various
Here—a man selling silvering-liquor, to be applied to vulgar yellow spoons, only a franc a bottle, and a whole set turned into purest silver-plating, plating that will not wear out through all your lives.
From In Troubadour-Land A Ramble in Provence and Languedoc by Baring-Gould, S. (Sabine)
To explain more clearly, it was the practice of most silver platers to use an alloy for silver-plating.
From American Hand Book of the Daguerreotype by Humphrey, S. D. (Samuel Dwight)
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.