plaque

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   A flat piece of metal, stone, or wood with writing on it, fixed to a wall or monument to remember a person or event.

   A bronze plaque on the house marks where the famous writer was born.

2. 2
   noun

   A sticky layer of bacteria that builds up on teeth and can cause decay.

   Brushing twice a day helps remove plaque from your teeth.

3. 3
   noun

   A harmful build-up of material inside the body, often linked to disease.

   Fatty plaque in the arteries can lead to heart disease.

Unadapted borrowing from French plaque (“plate, sheet (of metal); slab (of marble); bacteria on teeth”), from French plaquer, Middle French plaquer (“to plate”), from Middle Dutch placken (“to patch, beat metal into a thin plate”), from placke (“disk, patch, stain”), from Old Dutch *plagga (“patch”), from Proto-Germanic *plaggą (“patch”). The word is cognate with Middle Low German placke, plagge (“small stain, scraps, rags, thin grass”), German Placken (“spot, patch”), Saterland Frisian plak, plakke (“a blow, slap”), Swedish plagg (“clothing, garment”). Compare plack.

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