1549 T. Cooper Lanquet's Epitome of Crons. iii. f. 114^v He made a high toure, hauing the floore of bordes couered with golde plate bordered with procious stones.

1649 T. Pestel in R. Brome Lachrymæ Musarum 20 To print so black a Sorrow fair, I want Gold-plate for Paper, Pen of Adamant.

1729 J. Braithwaite Hist. Revol. in Morocco 230 We saw in the Court two of the Emperor's Horses... The Saddles were covered with Gold Plate.

1881 G. Wallis in Encycl. Brit. XIII. 676/2 Another smaller diadem found in another tomb..is of gold plate, so thick as to require no ‘piping’ at the back to sustain it.

1911 Trans. Amer. Electrochem. Soc. 19 62 Prof. Landis was attracted by the fact that in buying some steel pens which had gold plate on them, they did not last as long as steel pens without the gold plate.

1991 New Yorker 14 Oct. 77/1 As late as the nineteen-fifties, a British handbook of metalwork identified flame gilding as the..most durable method of applying gold plate, but failed to add that it is also the most hazardous.

2014 Hindustan Times (Nexis) 29 Sept. The sandstone idol of Tara, its face covered with gold plate.

1579 T. North tr. Plutarch Liues 974 He caried with him a great number of cubbords ful of siluer & gold plate.

1710 D. Manley Mem. Europe I. i. 81 As fine a Set as had ever been seen, of Gold Plate for her Toilet and Chamber.

1823 W. Scott Quentin Durward III. iii. 81 I was served upon gold-plate by order of the same Charles.

1907 E. A. Jones Old Eng. Gold Plate Introd. p. ix The small number of specimens of Old English gold plate in this country at the present time.

1991 L. Sante Low Life ii. iv. 161 They would serve lavish dinners.., with costly viands laid out on silver and gold plate.

2007 G. Hunter Silver Sun 172 [The horse's] saddlebags were weighed down with silver and gold plate, stolen from the church.

1871 Eng. Mechanic & World of Sci. 29 Dec. 393/2 Will some one inform me if it is possible to gold-plate a manufactured article.

1899 Hardware Dealers' Mag. May 643/2 Articles which have been gold plated produce the best results when dried in an oven with a temperature of 140° F.

1918 Jewelers' Circular 20 Nov. 53/2 Iron rings were frequently gold plated by slaves [in the Roman Empire].

1956 Washington Post 11 Aug. 31/3 Now they're gold-plating faucets in the bathroom.

1991 Atlantic Jan. 99/2 (advt.) It is heavily gold-plated and topped with an iridium point.

2011 N. S. Berman & R. Guth Coin Collecting for Dummies iii. x. 126 The word Cents was left off the coin, creating an opportunity for con men to gold-plate the coins and pass them off as $5 gold pieces.

1959 Jrnl. Educ. Sociol. 33 151 It was therefore suggested that we..do the things that were feasible within a budget of a reasonable amount, without gold-plating the program.

1972 Foreign Policy No. 6 101 They needlessly gold-plate the product during development.

1988 N.Y. Times (Nexis) 27 July d2/1 The phone companies have every incentive to ‘gold plate’ their systems with..excessively costly equipment.

2006 P. S. Mehta Functional Competition Policy for India 259 The service provider [sc. a doctor] seeks to gold-plate the services to the consumer,..as with unnecessary [medical] tests.