fishplate

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English

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Etymology

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From fish +‎ plate. See fish (curved wooden bar used to strengthen a ship's mast).

Noun

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A fishplate joining two sections of bullhead rail

fishplate (plural fishplates)

  1. (rail transport) A metal bar that is bolted to the ends of two rails to join them together in a track.
    • 1901, George Gipps, The Fighting in North China (up to the Fall of Tientsin City), Shanghai: Kelly and Walsh, →OL, page 40:
      The train, minus the three abandoned trucks, again proceeded at a slow pace, with a pump trolley doing pilot ahead ; this was very necessary as a great many sleepers were found to have been burnt underneath the fishplates.

Synonyms

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Translations

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Verb

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fishplate (third-person singular simple present fishplates, present participle fishplating, simple past and past participle fishplated)

  1. (transitive, rail transport) To connect (rails) together using a fishplate.
    • 1959 November, “Talking of Trains: Widening north of York”, in Trains Illustrated, page 518:
      One section of the line will consist of 60 ft. lengths of rail welded together on site to form fully continuous rails; another will be of 300 ft. lengths, flash butt-welded in Dinsdale Rail Welding Depot and fishplated together on site; [...].

Further reading

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Anagrams

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