plate

Pronunciation: plāt

Definition:

1. anatomy a thin, relatively flat, structure.
2. A metal bar perforated for screws applied to a fractured bone to maintain the ends in apposition.
3. The agar layer within a Petri dish or similar vessel.
4. To form a thin layer of a bacterial culture by streaking it on the surface of an agar plate (usually within a Petri dish) to isolate individual organisms from which a colonial clone will develop.
5. Any of the horizontal perforated plates that make up the fractionating component of a column in fractional distillation (or, the theoretic equivalent of such a plate).

Synonym(s): laminaTA

[O.Fr. plat, a flat object, fr. G. platys, flat, broad]

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