license plate

American  

noun

• license plates
  plural

1. a plate or tag, usually of metal, bearing evidence of official registration and permission, as for the use of a motor vehicle.

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license plate British  

noun

1. Also called (in Britain and certain other countries): numberplate.  a plate mounted on the front and back of a motor vehicle bearing the registration number

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Other Word Forms

Noun Inflected Forms

• license plates
  plural

Etymology

Origin of license plate

First recorded in 1900–05

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

license plate

A license plate and a vehicle’s exterior are exposed to anyone on a public road.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 28, 2026

The company is most known for its camera network, which extracts data about cars from photographs and allows operators to search for vehicles by description or license plate number.

From Salon ● Aug. 17, 2026

Detectives retrieved his license plate data and entered an alert in Flock's system.

From Barron's ● Aug. 9, 2026

A license plate circulated on chat networks, and agents later swapped it out.

From Slate ● Jul. 27, 2026

Now that I was this close, I could make out the license plate.

From "Shelter (Book One): A Mickey Bolitar Novel" by Harlan Coben