Green’s Dictionary of Slang

occas. single, the feet.

1859, 1860		Hotten Dict. of Modern Sl. etc.
1873		Sl. Dict.
1888		Hants Teleg. 29 Sept. 11/6: ‘Mary is all right, but her “plates of meat” — her feet — are too extensive.
1899		A. Binstead Houndsditch Day by Day 130: Very p’rtiklar always to valk vith a bit of a limp, as if he vhas rocky on the plates.
1899		C. Rook Hooligan Nights 41: Running as fast as the cop could keep time to wiv ’s plates o’ meat.
1903		Truth (Brisbane) 15 Mar. 1/8: The rhyming slang of Cockneyism spread to Australia long ago, and everybody now knows that when you speak of a man’s ‘plates o’ meat’ you mean his feet.
1905		Duke Tritton’s Letter n.p.: Her Dublin Fair is sort of brown, her Mince Pies are blue, her North and South was made for kissing and from the top of her Lump Of Lead to her Plates Of Meat she is perfect.
1913		Sport (Adelaide) 5 July 9/4: They Say [...] That Jim H., [...] would make a good footballer if he could only control his big plates of meat.
1917		W. Muir Observations of Orderly 222: To get your ‘plates of meat’ frostbitten wasn’t such a ‘cushy wound’ as it was cracked up to be.
1921		N&Q 12 Ser. IX 347: Plates. Feet.
1921		Truth (Brisbane) 13 Feb. 3/3: Not one of the mob [i.e. English-women] knows how to dress — they resemble a flourbag tied in the middle —and as for their ‘ham and eggs’ and ‘plates of meat,’ and for their figures generally, I reckon they are the funniest lot on earth.
1928		M.C. Sharpe Chicago May: Her Story in Hamilton (1952) 132: Plates of meat—feet.
1937		L. Lane Me and My Girl I iii: bill: My boots! They ’urt me plates o’ meat. That’s me feet.
1938		(con. 1900s) in J.B. Booth Sporting Times 88: And she hurried her plates once more.
1941		West. Australian (Perth) 12 Apr. 4: Sweating for miles on the frog and toad, / Our plates of meat like a two-ton load.
1943		R. Llewellyn None But the Lonely Heart 98: I’m just going to take me daisy roots off and cool me poor old plates.
1948		C. Day Lewis Otterbury Incident 30: ‘Plates of meat,’ murmured Dick Cozzens, who is an expert in slang.
1958		A. Sillitoe Sat. Night and Sun. Morning 67: Shouts to mind your own business and demands that you keep your big dirty plates of meat to yourself.
1960		B. Kops Dream of Peter Mann Act II: Oh my poor plates of meat! Got a corn plaster, darling?
1962		J. McNeill How Does Your Garden Grow? (1974) 91: [text missing].
1963		L.F. Freed Crime in S. Afr. 106: His ‘plates of meat’ [are] his feet.
1965		(con. 1940s) B. Behan Confessions 73: I’ve only one hand but I’ve two plates of meat.
1976		(ref. to 1930s) R. Barnes Coronation Cups and Jam Jars 104: Too much work for the old pegs, pedalling that old thing [...] Too much for the old plates of meat if you walk.
1983		J. Byrell (con. 1959) Up the Cross 9: ‘[H]e got holda one drop kick by the left warwick and yanked him into the whisper and stamped on his loaf with his right plate’.
1984		(con. WW2) T. Jones Heart of Oak [ebook] Get your plates moving or I’ll have the slew of you on bloody jankers.
1988		J. Healy Grass Arena (1990) 144: But where to wash a pair of rotting plates of meat? I know the toilet washroom [...] seems the place, but the days have long gone since I was nimble enough to lift one leg for that balancing trick.
1988		McGill Dict. of Kiwi Sl. 15/2: blades of meat feet; rhyming slang variant of English ‘plates of meat’.
1995		J. Cameron Vinnie Got Blown Away 5: They sawed his plates off first.
1999		E. Bunker Mr Blue 114: ‘Plates of meat’ are the feet.
2001		D. Looser Boobslang [U. Canterbury D.Phil. thesis] 142/1: plates of meat n. pl.. feet.
2002		M. Coles More Bible in Cockney 25: Get these on the floor people out of my boatrace and from under me plates of meat!
2003		McGill Reed Dict. of N.Z. Sl. [as cit. 1988].
2006		C. Marriner Southern Style 162: The patsy has to contemplate a future of avin ’is plates of meat swept out from under ’im.
2006		B. Matthews Intractable [ebook] ‘The Foot’ was a senior Bathurst screw who had gigantic ‘plates of meat’ but the IQ of a speed hump.
2016		N. Cummins Adventures of the Honey Badger [ebook] Plates of meat = feet.
2023		R. Milward Man-Eating Typewriter 59: Pointing my platters in nix particular direction, I scarpered away.