pole plate

Noun

pole plate (plural pole plates)

1. A horizontal timber resting on the tiebeams of a roof and receiving the ends of the rafters, differing from the plate in that it is not resting on the wall.
   • The "pole-plate" is parallel to the wall-plate, and rests on the end of the "tie-beam." The "purlin" is a piece of timber running parallel to the pole-plate, and midway between it and the "ridge-pole," the purlins resting on the principal rafters.1853 July, R.S. Burn, “Agricultural Architecture and Engineering”, in The Journal of Agriculture, volume 6, page 16
   • The roofs of the dormer windows are supported on a beam or pole plate, running level between the front wall and the rafters of the principal roof ; this beam may be 6 inches broad and 4 inches thick; the space between the front wall and the roof may be built up with brick, and finished on the...1856, John White, Rural Architecture, page 7
2. Any of various plates used to secure an attachment to a pole.
   • The pole plate normally has a greater radius than the largest pole top, and when drawn into place not only conforms closely to the circumference of the pole, but draws down against the gain, thus providing sufficient spring tension to compensate any shrinkage in the pole or cross arm.1906, Telephony - Volume 11, page 251
   • A heavy three-hole pole plate with crossarm and porcelain elbow makes the bracket easy to put up and wire, serving also as a protection for the wires.1918, Western Electric Company, Electrical Supply Year Book, page 522
3. A structure that forms at the pole of the spindle during the first meiotic or mitotic division in some animals.
   • The pole plate of the 1st spindle becomes immediately the equatorial of the 2nd, where the 14 chromosomes are arranged in pairs, of each of which one goes to one pole and one to the other.1899, Thomas H. Montgomery Jr., “The Spermatogenesis in Pentatoma up to the Formation of the Spermatid”, in University of Pennsylvania, editor, Contributions from the Zoological Laboratory for the...
   • In Spriochona (Fig. 38, A-C) a hemisperical "end-plate" or "pole-plate" is situated at either pole of the spindle, and Herwig's observations indicated, though they did not prove, that these plates arose by the division of a large "nucleolus."1911, Edmund Beecher Wilson, The Cell in Development and Inheritance