To water one's plants, verb. phr. (old).—To shed tears: see Bib.
Plaster, verb, (common).—To
flatter.
Plaster of warm (or hot) guts, subs. phr. (venery).—Copulation; 'one warm Belly clapt to another.'—B. E. (c. 1696); Grose (1785): see Greens and Ride.
Plasterer, subs. (sporting).—An
amateur gun: see quot. and cf.
Peter Gunner.
1885. Bromley-Davenport, Sport. The plasterer is one who thinks nothing of the lives and eyes of the men who surround him on all sides, and blows his pheasant to a pulp before the bird is seven feet in the air.
Plate (Plate-fleet or Family
Plate), subs, (common).—1.
Generic for money: formerly a
piece of silver: also (Halliwell)
= 'illegal silver money': see
Rhino. Hence to melt the
plate = to spend lavishly; when
the plate-fleet comes in =
money in plenty.—B. E. (c. 1696);
Grose (1785).
1586. Marlow, Jew of Malta [Dodsley, Old Plays (Reed), viii. 335]. He's worth three hundred plates.
1608. Shakspeare. Antony and Cleopatra, v. 2. In his livery Walk'd crowns and crownets; realms and islands were As plates dropt from his pocket.
1624. Beaumont and Fletcher, Rule a Wife, ii. 2. 'Tis such a trouble to . . . have a thousand things of great importance, Jewels and plates.
1749. Smollett, Gil Bias, vii. vii. I left [Phenicia] busy in melting the plate of a little merchant goldsmith, who, out of vanity, would have an actress for his mistress.
2. (rhyming).—In pl. = the feet: originally plates of meat: see Creepers. Whence to plate it = to walk. Also (American thieves') plates of meat = a street.
1886-96. Marshall, Pomes from the Pink 'Un ['Some Object Lessons'], 108. He is rocky on his plates, For he has forced them into 'sevens.' Ibid. ('Nobbled'), 114. A cove we call Feet, sir, on account of the size of his plates.
1887. Sims, in Referee, 7 Nov. 'Tottie.' As she walked along the street With her little plates of meat.
Old Plates, subs. phr. (Stock Exchange).—The shares of the London and River Plate Bank. New Plates = shares of the English Bank of the River Plate: see Stock Exchange.
To be in for the plate and win the heat, verb. phr. (old).—To get pox or clap.—Grose (1785).
To foul a plate, verb. phr. (old).—To dine or sup.—Grose (1785).
Platform, subs, (colloquial).—Formerly
a plan, design, or
model: now a declaration of
principles or doctrines (chiefly
religious and political) governing
organised public action, each
section or paragraph of which is
called a plank. Also, as verb.
= to draft or publish such a
declaration of principles or doctrines.
[See the earlier quots. for
an inkling of the modern usage.]
1555. Foxe, Acts and Monuments, vi. 25. If my lord of St. Davids . . . have their head encumbered with any new platform. Ibid., 592. The bishop had spent all his powder in casting such a platform to build his policy on as he thought should stand for ever and a day.
