laminate

Etymology

It is borrowed from New Latin lāminātus (“plated”),^[2][3] from Latin lāmina (“thin piece of metal or wood, plate, layer”).^[4][5][3] Several dictionaries describe it instead as formed from English lamina + -ate.^[6][7][8][4] The OED takes the verb from the participial stem of an unrecorded Latin verb meaning to make into plates, and compares French laminer and Italian laminare.^[3] The Latin noun is of unknown or uncertain origin;^[4][5] Etymonline quotes de Vaan's view that the only serious proposal connects it with lātus (“wide”), the source of latitude.^[4] Klein compares lame, a thin plate.^[5] Ayto notes that the diminutive lāmella (“thin sheet of metal”) is also the source, through Old French, of omelette.^[9]

Earliest recorded meaning

To beat or roll metal into thin plates: 1666, in R. Boyle's The Origine of Formes and Qualities.^[3] Merriam-Webster Unabridged dates the verb to 1665,^[8] and Etymonline and Dictionary.com to the 1660s.^[4][10]

Semantic evolution

The verb first described working metal into thin plates, a sense Etymonline now calls rare,^[4][3] and by 1668 also splitting something into layers, used intransitively too.^[3][4] The adjective, having the form of or consisting of a lamina or thin plate, is recorded from 1668, in Bishop J. Wilkins's Essay Towards a Real Character.^[3][8] From 1697 the verb could mean to overlay with metal plates; from 1858 it was also used of building something up from layer upon layer of material.^[3] The industrial sense grew with plastics: the noun, a laminated plastic, is recorded from 1939,^[3][8][4] and Etymonline suggests that many modern senses of the verb come from this noun.^[4] The OED dates the verb's sense of bonding layers into a laminated material to 1945, and the noun's use for a fabric or packaging material of two or more bonded layers to 1952.^[3] The everyday sense, to cover a card or document with a thin protective sheet of plastic, is listed first in the American Heritage Dictionary.^[11] In American campus slang of the 1980s and 1990s a laminate was a fake or phoney person, a pun on plastic.^[12]

Timeline

• 1666 – to beat or roll metal into thin plates.^[3] Merriam-Webster Unabridged gives 1665.^[8]
• 1668 – to split into layers; adjective, consisting of a lamina or laminae.^[3][8]
• 1697 – to cover with metal plates.^[3]
• 1858 – to make by placing layer upon layer of material.^[3]
• 1939 – noun, a laminated plastic.^[3][8][4]
• 1945 – to bond layers together into a laminated material.^[3]
• 1952 – noun, a fabric or packaging material of two or more bonded layers.^[3]
• 1986 – noun, in American campus slang, a fake person.^[12]

Meanings

Verb

1. To cover something with a thin transparent sheet of plastic, as for protection: The menus were laminated so they could be wiped clean.^[11][2]
2. To make a material by bonding together two or more thin layers.^[11][8][2]
3. To beat, roll or press metal into a thin plate or sheet.^[11][8][2]
4. To split into thin layers, or to divide something into them.^[11][8][2]

Adjective

1. Consisting of, arranged in or covered with laminae; laminated.^[11][8][2]

Noun

1. A material made by bonding layers together, especially a laminated plastic used for surfaces and flooring.^{[11][8][2][3]}

Word family

• laminator
• delaminate
• lamination
• interlaminate
• multilaminate

Related words

• lamina
• lamella
• laminated
• omelette

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
5. ^ a b c Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
6. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
8. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
9. ^ Ayto, John (2005), Word Origins: The Secret Histories of English Words from A to Z, 2nd ed., London: A & C Black
10. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
11. ^ a b c d e f g The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
12. ^ a b Green, Jonathon (2010), Green's Dictionary of Slang, London: Chambers; digital ed. 2016–, https://greensdictofslang.com