Fishplate
noun, verb ·Rare ·Advanced level
Definitions
- 1 A metal bar that is bolted to the ends of two rails to join them together in a track.
"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."
- 2 metal plate bolted along sides of two rails or beams wordnet
- 1 To connect (rails) together using a fishplate. transitive
"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; [...]."
Synonyms
All synonymsExample
More examples"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."
Etymology
From fish + plate. See fish (“curved wooden bar used to strengthen a ship's mast”).
More for "fishplate"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.