Find the word definition

Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
home base
noun
EXAMPLES FROM OTHER ENTRIES
▪ the astronauts' home base at Johnson Space Center
EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS
▪ Besides, away from their home base, knights were useless on their own.
▪ Evening is a time for partying and meeting new people away from your home base.
▪ Every day students choose a desk to serve as their home base and fill it with their supplies.
▪ Just jot down Cale's home base on a postcard.
▪ One refers to the page that appears when you start your browser and acts as your home base for exploring the Web.
▪ The carrier operates mostly out of its home base in Minneapolis, and from Detroit and Memphis, Tenn.
The Collaborative International Dictionary
home base

Plate \Plate\, n. [OF. plate a plate of metal, a cuirsas, F. plat a plate, a shallow vessel of silver, other metal, or earth, fr. plat flat, Gr. ?. See Place, n.]

  1. A flat, or nearly flat, piece of metal, the thickness of which is small in comparison with the other dimensions; a thick sheet of metal; as, a steel plate.

  2. Metallic armor composed of broad pieces.

    Mangled . . . through plate and mail.
    --Milton.

  3. Domestic vessels and utensils, as flagons, dishes, cups, etc., wrought in gold or silver.

  4. Metallic ware which is plated, in distinction from that which is silver or gold throughout.

  5. A small, shallow, and usually circular, vessel of metal or wood, or of earth glazed and baked, from which food is eaten at table.

  6. [Cf. Sp. plata silver.] A piece of money, usually silver money. [Obs.] ``Realms and islands were as plates dropp'd from his pocket.''
    --Shak.

  7. A piece of metal on which anything is engraved for the purpose of being printed; hence, an impression from the engraved metal; as, a book illustrated with plates; a fashion plate.

  8. A page of stereotype, electrotype, or the like, for printing from; as, publisher's plates.

  9. That part of an artificial set of teeth which fits to the mouth, and holds the teeth in place. It may be of gold, platinum, silver, rubber, celluloid, etc.

  10. (Arch.) A horizontal timber laid upon a wall, or upon corbels projecting from a wall, and supporting the ends of other timbers; also used specifically of the roof plate which supports the ends of the roof trusses or, in simple work, the feet of the rafters.

  11. (Her.) A roundel of silver or tinctured argent.

  12. (Photog.) A sheet of glass, porcelain, metal, etc., with a coating that is sensitive to light.

  13. A prize giving to the winner in a contest.

  14. (Baseball) A small five-sided area (enveloping a diamond-shaped area one foot square) beside which the batter stands and which must be touched by some part of a player on completing a run; -- called also home base, or home plate.

  15. One of the thin parts of the bricket of an animal.

  16. A very light steel racing horsehoe.

  17. Loosely, a sporting contest for a prize; specif., in horse racing, a race for a prize, the contestants not making a stake.

  18. Skins for fur linings of garments, sewed together and roughly shaped, but not finally cut or fitted. [Furrier's Cant]

  19. (Hat Making) The fine nap (as of beaver, hare's wool, musquash, nutria, or English black wool) on a hat the body of which is of an inferior substance.

  20. a quantity sufficient to fill a plate; a plateful; a dish containing that quantity; a plate of spaghetti.

  21. the food and service supplied to a customer at a restaurant; as, the turkey dinner is $9 a plate; I'll have a plate of spaghetti.

  22. a flat dish of glass or plastic with a fitted cover, used for culturing microorganisms in a laboratory.

  23. the identification tag required to be displayed on the outside of a vehicle; same as license plate; -- often used in the plural.

  24. an agenda or schedule of tasks to be performed; I have a lot on my plate today. [colloq.] Note: Plate is sometimes used in an adjectival sense or in combination, the phrase or compound being in most cases of obvious signification; as, plate basket or plate-basket, plate rack or plate-rack. Home plate. (Baseball) See Home base, under Home. Plate armor.

    1. See Plate, n., 2.

    2. Strong metal plates for protecting war vessels, fortifications, and the like.

      Plate bone, the shoulder blade, or scapula.

      Plate girder, a girder, the web of which is formed of a single vertical plate, or of a series of such plates riveted together.

      Plate glass. See under Glass.

      Plate iron, wrought iron plates.

      Plate layer, a workman who lays down the rails of a railway and fixes them to the sleepers or ties.

      Plate mark, a special mark or emblematic figure stamped upon gold or silver plate, to indicate the place of manufacture, the degree of purity, and the like; thus, the local mark for London is a lion.

      Plate paper, a heavy spongy paper, for printing from engraved plates.
      --Fairholt.

      Plate press, a press with a flat carriage and a roller, -- used for printing from engraved steel or copper plates.

      Plate printer, one who prints from engraved plates.

      Plate printing, the act or process of printing from an engraved plate or plates.

      Plate tracery. (Arch.) See under Tracery.

      Plate wheel (Mech.), a wheel, the rim and hub of which are connected by a continuous plate of metal, instead of by arms or spokes.

Wiktionary
home base

n. 1 (context baseball English) home plate. 2 (context business English) headquarters.

WordNet
home base
  1. n. (baseball) base consisting of a rubber slab where the batter stands; it must be touched by a base runner in order to score; "he ruled that the runner failed to touch home" [syn: home plate, home, plate]

  2. (usually plural) the office that serves as the administrative center of an enterprise; "many companies have their headquarters in New York" [syn: headquarters, central office, main office, home office]

Wikipedia
Home Base (film)

Home Base is a 2002 short film written and directed by Colin Trevorrow. The story revolves around Nick, who is dumped by his girlfriend Amanda (who leaves him for his boss, Charlie). Nick gets his revenge on Amanda by pursuing a sexual relationship with Amanda's mother, Jackie, and flaunting it in front of Amanda.

Usage examples of "home base".

Without landmarks, Langley tried to find the New Mexico spacefield which was his home base.

But there was quite a contrast between the sleek modern architecture of the home base, the Mallard Pathological Institute overlooking the Hudson, and this plastic-walled collection of shacks, staffed by a few Institute men and some native helpers.

For a while, he thought he was going to lose the race against the infection, but then he had the foreign element on the retreat, eliminated it, and was nearly to home base.

You want me to say it was a big machine built by the aliens for some noble purpose and it was lying in wait to be activated by us, and then it launched a little ship back to home base.

When it came to asking himself how he had ended up in command of an alien spaceship, 1,500,000,000 kilometers from home base and carrying almost 60,000 civilians in its belly, he refused to let the question surface more than twice a day.