platform

1. (figurative) A place or an opportunity to express one's opinion.Examples: "This new talk show will give a platform to everyday men and women."; "[LeBron] James did not say which vaccine he had taken or the number of doses he had received. He also said that he would not use his platform to publicly encourage others to be vaccinated."Synonyms: tribunefiguratively

2. (figurative) Something that allows an enterprise to advance.Examples: "Hidgson may actually feel England could have scored even more but this was the perfect first step on the road to Rio in 2014 and the ideal platform for the second qualifier against Ukraine at Wembley on Tuesday."Synonyms: foundation, stagefiguratively

3. (politics, figurative) A political stance on a broad set of issues, which are called planks.Examples: "Now if the earth could be enjoyed in such a manner as every one might have provision, as it may by this platform I have offered, then will the peace of the commonwealth be preserved, and men need not act so hypocritically as the clergy do, and others likewise, to get a living."; "The Communist Party and its candidates stand on the following platform, which expresses the immediate interests of the majority of the population of our country."; "Surely there is nothing strange or new or threatening about such a platform. It will distress only those who have the essentially un-American view that change itself is frightening and should be avoided at all costs."figuratively

4. (transport) A raised structure or other area alongside rails or a driveway alongside which vehicles stop to take in and discharge passengers.Examples: "We expressed our readiness, and in ten minutes were in the station wagon, rolling rapidly down the long drive, for it was then after nine.[…]As we reached the lodge we heard the whistle, and we backed up against one side of the platform as the train pulled up at the other."; "People on the platforms / Waiting for the trains / I can hear their hearts a-beatin’ / Like pendulums swinging on chains"; "“Well, there you are, boy. Platform nine — platform ten. Your platform should be somewhere in the middle, but they don’t seem to have built it yet, do they?”"

5. (footwear, in the plural) Ellipsis of platform shoe (“a kind of high shoe with an extra layer between the inner and outer soles”).Examples: "Now open the album cover! How fabulous! The four of them [the Pointer Sisters] in platforms of death, tacky gowns, and "reflections of.""; "Walk to Shazzer's from polling station was hideous walk of shame. Also cannot wear platforms now as feet too crippled so will look short."abbreviationalt-ofellipsisin-plural

6. (Internet) A software system used to provide online services to clients, such as social media, e-commerce, or cloud computing.Examples: "Finance is seldom romantic. But the idea of peer-to-peer lending comes close. This is an industry that brings together individual savers and lenders on online platforms. Those that want to borrow are matched with those that want to lend."; "In fact, wealth and power are shifting to those who control the platforms on which all of us create, consume, and connect."; "The promise of the platform business model is its magical self-reinforcement: Once the platform is in place, money is supposed to flow through the system without much extra effort at all."Internet