Definitions
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun In railroads, an iron plate fitted to the web of a rail, and sometimes partly embracing the foot: used in pairs, one on each side of the junction of two rails, to join them end to end, and fastened together by bolts passing through the rails.
Etymologies
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Examples
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_No. 7_ with or without the fish-plate, is used in boats and canoes, and is sometimes called
Handwork in Wood William Noyes
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In order to facilitate as much as possible the repairs in such cases, the fish-plates are not riveted by machinery, but by hand; and it is only necessary to cut the rivets with which the fish-plate is fastened, and remove it if broken: A drill passed through the two holes of the rail removes all burrs that may be in the way of the new rivet.
Scientific American Supplement, No. 446, July 19, 1884 Various
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_ In a _fished joint_, Fig. 264, keys are often inserted between the fish-plate and beam at right angles to the bolts in order to lessen the strain that comes upon the bolts when the joint is subjected to tension.
Handwork in Wood William Noyes
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The only accident that can happen to the track is the breaking of a fish-plate.
Scientific American Supplement, No. 446, July 19, 1884 Various
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Be not too much stricken of amazement, therefore, when now these cold ones, who would not have bought an American railroad without counting the cross-ties and weighing every spike and fish-plate, were ready to send millions adrift on a sightless invasion of Asia ten thousand miles away.
The President A novel Alfred Henry Lewis 1885
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The fish-plate may be drawn up, to see if the fish be ready, which may be known by its easily separating from the bone.
The Book of Household Management Isabella Mary 1861
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The fish-plate should be set crossways over the kettle, to keep hot for serving, and a clean cloth over the fish, to prevent its losing its colour.
The Book of Household Management Isabella Mary 1861
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The fish-plate may be drawn up, to see if the fish be ready, which may be known by its easily separating from the bone.
The Book of Household Management Isabella Mary 1861
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The fish-plate should be set crossways over the kettle, to keep hot for serving, and a clean cloth over the fish, to prevent its losing its colour.
The Book of Household Management Isabella Mary 1861
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Lady Griffin blusht, and droopt her head till her ringlets fell into her fish-plate: and she swallowed Lord Crabs's flumry just as she would so many musharuins.
The Memoirs of Mr. Charles J. Yellowplush William Makepeace Thackeray 1837
yarb commented on the word fish-plate
...the rhythm of the wheels on the railway lines (presumably before the advent of continuous section railway track, when fish-plates interrupted the smooth progress of the wheels, causing a regular, pleasing syncopation).
- Peter Reading, NOTES, from Fiction, 1979
June 26, 2008