Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun An open frame for holding plates and dishes; specifically, a frame in which dishes can be placed in a vertical position to dry after they have been washed.
  • noun Any arrangement, other than simple shelves, for holding plates in any number, as the inclosed boxes, etc., in the pantries of a ship.
  • noun A grooved frame for receiving photographic plates while wet, and holding them diagonally on edge to drain; a negative-rack.

Etymologies

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Examples

  • Then, into the cell, aired high up in the wooden wall through an opening like a kitchen plate-rack: wherein there was a drunken man, not at all warm, and very wishful to know if it were morning yet.

    Reprinted Pieces 2007

  • Opposite the broad kitchen-range was a plate-rack well filled with serviceable chinaware, and which formed the upper part of a dresser or plain deal sideboard.

    True to his Colours The Life that Wears Best Theodore P. Wilson

  • Whilst cooking is going on they will dry nicely on sheets of paper on the plate-rack.

    Dr. Allinson's cookery book Comprising many valuable vegetarian recipes

  • There is an uncovered deal the left wall is a dresser and a plate-rack above it containing a few pots.

    The Atlantic Book of Modern Plays Eugene O'Neill 1920

  • In the dining-room was an electrolier made of seven kinds of inimical colored glass, and a plate-rack from which were hung department-store steins.

    The Innocents A Story for Lovers Sinclair Lewis 1918

  • He hastened out of the kitchen, with the happy glance he never failed to give the living-room -- its red-papered walls with shiny imitation-oak woodwork; the rows of steins on the plate-rack; the imitation-oak dining-table, with a vase of newly dusted paper roses; the Morris chair, with Nelly's sewing on a tiny wicker table beside it; the large gilt-framed oleograph of

    Our Mr. Wrenn, the Romantic Adventures of a Gentle Man Sinclair Lewis 1918

  • After an agitated conference with the vice-president of the Comfy Coast Company, during which she was eloquent as an automobile advertisement regarding Mr. Wilkins's former masterpieces with their "every modern improvement, parquet floors, beam ceilings, plate-rack, hardwood trim throughout, natty and novel decorations," Una reached the zenith of salesman's virtues -- she "closed the deal."

    The Job An American Novel Sinclair Lewis 1918

  • With her excitement dulled to a matter-of-fact hungriness, she trotted beside him to a restaurant, one of the string of Vance eating-places, a food-mill which tried to achieve originality by the use of imitation rafters, a plate-rack aligned with landscape plates, and varnished black tables for four instead of the long, marble tables which crowded the patrons together in most places of the sort.

    The Job An American Novel Sinclair Lewis 1918

  • Chee-Chee climb the plate-rack like a sailor going up a mast.

    The Voyages of Dr. Dolittle Hugh Lofting 1916

  • "Your bed on top of the plate-rack in the scullery is all ready for you," said the Doctor.

    The Voyages of Dr. Dolittle Hugh Lofting 1916

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