platter

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English plater, also platter,^[2] borrowed from Anglo-Norman plater (“platter, broad shallow dish”),^{[3][4][5][6][7][8]} from Old French plat (“dish”), the adjective "flat" used as a noun.^{[6][9][7][10]} The OED, revising the entry in 2006, takes the Anglo-Norman word as a variant of platel (“serving dish”), the source of plateau, and compares Medieval Latin platera (“dish, platter”), recorded in British sources from before 1276;^[3] Barnhart also names that Latin word as a source.^[11] Weekley thought plater may have been modelled on trencher or altered from platel.^[12] The word is related to plate.^[4][5][13]

Earliest recorded meaning

A large flat dish, especially for food: before 1325, in the Southern Passion,^[3][2] about 1280 in Barnhart and the late 13th century in Etymonline.^[11][4] The Anglo-Norman word is recorded from the early 14th century.^[8]

Semantic evolution

Etymonline notes that a platter was especially the large plate on which meat was carved.^[4] Johnson (1755) described it as a large dish, generally of earthenware,^[14] and Weekley (1921) thought the word archaic,^[12] but it later revived in North America for a main course served on one plate.^[3][9] The phrase to hand something to someone on a (silver) platter, to give without any effort on their part, is recorded from 1896.^[3][9] From the round, flat shape came slang senses: home plate in baseball (1892), feet in rhyming slang (1923, from platters of meat), and above all a gramophone record (1926, originally American),^[3][15] and then the turntable of a record player (1975) and the magnetic disc of a hard drive (1974).^[3] In dialect a platter-face was a round flat face and a platter-foot a flat foot.^[16]

Timeline

• before 1325 – a large flat dish for food.^[3][2]
• 1892 – baseball slang, home plate.^[3]
• 1896 – on a platter, without effort.^[3]
• 1923 – rhyming slang, feet.^[3]
• 1926 – slang, a gramophone record.^[3][15]
• 1974 – computing, a disc in a hard disk drive.^[3]
• 1975 – the turntable of a record player.^[3]

Meanings

Noun

1. A large shallow dish, usually oval, for serving food.^[10][17][3]
2. A course of several foods served together on one large plate: a cheese platter.^[10][3]
3. (slang, dated) A gramophone record.^[3][15]
4. The rotating disc of a turntable.^[3]
5. (computing) One of the magnetic discs that store data in a hard disk drive.^[3]
6. on a (silver) platter: without having to make any effort: He was handed the job on a silver platter.^[3][9]

Word family

• platterful

Related words

• plate
• plateau
• trencher

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
4. ^ a b c d Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
5. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
6. ^ a b Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
7. ^ a b Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
8. ^ a b Anglo-Norman Dictionary (AND2), Aberystwyth University, anglo-norman.net (2nd ed., 2005–)
9. ^ a b c d Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
10. ^ a b c Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
11. ^ a b Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
12. ^ a b Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
13. ^ Ayto, John (2005), Word Origins: The Secret Histories of English Words from A to Z, 2nd ed., London: A & C Black
14. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
15. ^ a b c Green, Jonathon (2010), Green's Dictionary of Slang, London: Chambers; digital ed. 2016–, https://greensdictofslang.com
16. ^ Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)
17. ^ Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster