A label, usually pasted inside the front cover of a book, bearing the name or crest of the owner, or other device indicating ownership, position in a library, etc.
1791. J. Ireland, Hogarth Illustr., I. Introd. p. xxi–xxii. The works of … Callot were probably his first models; and shop-bills and book-plates his first performances.
1850. N. & Q., I. 212. The book-plate with the following device—an eagle or vulture feeding with a snake another bird, nearly as large as herself.
1880. Warren, Book-plates, i. 2. The word book-plate in its technical sense of exact equivalence to ex-libris.
