plaque
Americannoun
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a thin, flat plate or tablet of metal, porcelain, etc., intended for ornament, as on a wall, or set in a piece of furniture.
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an inscribed commemorative tablet, usually of metal placed on a building, monument, or the like.
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a platelike brooch or ornament, especially one worn as the badge of an honorary order.
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Anatomy, Pathology. a flat, often raised, patch on the skin or other organ, as on the inner lining of arterial walls in atherosclerosis.
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Dentistry. a soft, sticky, whitish matlike film attached to tooth surfaces, formed largely by the growth of bacteria that colonize the teeth.
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Bacteriology. a cleared region in a bacterial culture, resulting from lysis of bacteria by bacteriophages.
noun
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an ornamental or commemorative inscribed tablet or plate of porcelain, wood, etc
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a small flat brooch or badge, as of a club, etc
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pathol any small abnormal patch on or within the body, such as the typical lesion of psoriasis
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short for dental plaque
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bacteriol a clear area within a bacterial or tissue culture caused by localized destruction of the cells by a bacteriophage or other virus
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A small disk-shaped formation or growth; a patch.
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A film of mucus and bacteria on the surface of the teeth.
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A deposit of material in a bodily tissue or organ, especially one of the fatty deposits that collect on the inner lining of an artery wall in atherosclerosis or one of the amyloid deposits that accumulate in the brain in Alzheimer's disease.
Etymology
Origin of plaque
1840–50; < French, noun derivative of plaquer to plate < Middle Dutch placken to patch; placket
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.
Other councils said they were aware of plaques in their areas marking past visits by Mountbatten-Windsor, who was arrested on suspicion of misconduct in public office earlier this month.
From BBC
When LDL levels are too high, cholesterol can build up inside artery walls, forming plaques that narrow blood vessels.
From Science Daily
They’ll also get a small plaque declaring them a “Prodigious Hydrogen Producer.”
If you read the restaurant's unverified blue plaque, you would think the band's 1982 hit Africa was written on the premises - leading to a row between the establishment's owner and the city's historical society.
From BBC
“Street legal 250s helped pay the racing bills,” the museum says on one of the informative plaques that identify each model with engine, top speed and horsepower, as well as other interesting details.
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.
