If food on plate: What one has a sense of ownership about; what one has received or hopes to receive from others, or from ones own efforts; what you have created and now face. Communal plate: What is available to you but you may have to compete for or share – in work, relationship, life. Empty plate: Ones needs; appetites; receptivity; perhaps status, as in the past only the rich had plates. Idioms: Handed to one on a plate; on ones plate. See: food.
