Plait means a braid, usually of hair, or the act of weaving strands together, while plate is a flat object such as a dinner plate, a metal sheet, or a license plate. They share no root and sound quite different once you notice the vowel, but the spelling can trip people up. Think braid for plait and dish for plate.
The core difference
Plait is about weaving strands into a braid; plate is a flat, rigid object or a thin metal coating.
- plait — a braid of hair, straw, or similar material, or the act of weaving one: She wore her long hair in a single plait down her back.
- plate — a flat dish, a rigid sheet of metal or glass, or a coating: She set a clean plate in front of each guest.
How to tell them apart
The easiest way to keep these apart is to picture the object each word describes. A plait is always strands woven together, whether it is a schoolgirl's hair or a length of straw twisted for weaving. A plate, on the other hand, is something flat: a dinner plate, a steel plate, a vehicle number plate, or even a tectonic plate.
The mix-up usually happens in writing rather than speech, since the words are pronounced quite differently. If you are unsure which one belongs in a sentence, ask whether the thing described is woven (plait) or flat and rigid (plate).
