fishplate

English

Etymology

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

Noun

fishplate (plural fishplates)

(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

joint bar

Translations

metal bar

Catalan: eclissa (ca) f, brida (ca) f
French: éclisse (fr) f
German: Lasche (de) f
Indonesian: pelat sambung
Italian: ganascia (it) f
Portuguese: eclissa f

Verb

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

(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; [...].

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