Plate : noun A plate is an individual piece of crockery, often round, used to contain food.
Prick the plates: be invited to eat.
Butter plate : power understood as a place of available wealth; source of profit.
Have the butter dish: have money at your disposal; to be at ease, to have a great deal of luck. To be one of the happy ones in this world, - in the jargon of the people. - Those who hold the plate with butter have all the pleasures which fortune brings and those which obtains a lofty situation.
So it's always the same as the butter dish will have?
To grab the butter plate: to take everything for yourself.
Deep plate: woman devoid of feminine advantages.
Plate face: flat face.
The plates: the Assises, The Cour d'Assises.
See Butter plate.
To be in a bad mood : not being in good shape, not having good morale, being indisposed, sick, feeling bad.
Be on your plate: be balanced, serene, feel good.
"Not being on your plate" is not gastronomic idiotism, the term "plate" here designating the way of being seated and not the element of dishes. Indeed, the word "plate" has its origin linked to the word "sit". Therefore one of the meanings of the word has been since 1580 with the writer Michel de Montaigne (1533-1592), is "the way of being seated", and for equine lovers, the "position of the rider on his mount" .
This association of the word gave, figuratively and for the same author, the meaning of "state of mind" or "way of being". It is this last meaning that we find in our expression. Some curious minds will wonder why the word "plate" then referred to an individual dish. To those there, it must be said that, always remaining with the meaning of "position" and from the end of the fourteenth century, the word designated the situation of a guest at the table.
By extension, the service placed at each place was also called "plate" before the word finally designates only the small individual dish.
In any case, what we can see is that when we are not on our plate, we are generally not very interested in what is inside.
Quote from the American comedian Woody Allen: "Marriage is like at a restaurant, as soon as you are served, you look at the neighbor's plate".