'silver-plated' originates from English, specifically the words 'silver' and 'plate', where 'silver' comes from Old English 'seolfor' meaning the metal silver and 'plate' comes from Old French 'plate' meaning a flat sheet or metal plate.

'silver' changed from Old English 'seolfor' (from Proto-Germanic) into Middle English 'sylver' and then modern English 'silver'; 'plate' came into English via Old French 'plate' (from Late Latin or Medieval Latin 'platta' influenced by Greek 'platys' meaning broad or flat). The compound 'silver-plate' arose as a verb in Early Modern English to describe covering objects with a layer of silver, and 'silver-plated' developed as its past participle and adjective form.

Initially the components referred to the metal ('silver') and a flat sheet or coating ('plate'); over time the compound came to mean the process of coating with silver and, as an adjective, objects having such a coating. The core sense of 'covered with silver' has been retained.