Noun: mate
Sample Sentences
-
A "mate" was a "mate" - share and share alike, no matter how bad might be the times, or how long a spell of ill luck had attended them. [1887, Harriet W. Daly, Digging, Squatting, and Pioneering Life in the Northern Territory of South Australia, page 152:]
-
Such overt displays of avowed sexual prowess – or at least, desperate availability – are not limited to the countryside. Even in the city, birds and animals and stockbrokers and nurses find ways of signalling their suitability as a mate. [2015 April 16, Richard P. Grant, “Sex and the successful fundraiser”, in The Guardian:]
-
I'm going to the pub with a few mates.
-
He's my best mate.
-
Excuse me, mate, have you got the time?
-
I found one of the socks I wanted to wear, but I couldn't find its mate.
-
Ye knew me once no mate / For you; there sitting where you durst not soar. [1667, John Milton, “Book IV”, in Paradise Lost. […], London: […] [Samuel Simmons], and are to be sold by Peter Parker […]; [a]nd by Robert Boulter […]; [a]nd Matthias Walker, […], →OCLC; republished as Paradise Lost in Ten Books: […], London: Basil Montagu Pickering […], 1873, →OCLC:]
Nouns inflected like mate
soldier's woundwort,
Nicosian,
whopper,
greypate,
tactile sign language,
chronotrope,
Rosie Lee,
dissentient,
photoinactivator,
sulphonediimine,
coastal waterfall,
residuary devise,
bituminization,
nitrosonaphthol,
smṛiti,
geosphere,
backscreen,
mensuralist,
flocculate,
flocculant, etc. (List truncated at 20 nouns)
Etymology
1. From Middle English mate, a borrowing from Middle Low German mate (“messmate”) (replacing Middle English mett, mette (“table companion, mate, partner”), from Old English ġemetta (“sharer of food, table-guest”)), from Old Saxon gimato, derived from Proto-Germanic *gamatjô, itself from *ga- (“together”) (related to German and Dutch ge-) + *matjô (from *matiz (“food”)), related to Old English mete (“food”)). From the same Middle Low German source stems German Low German Maat (“journeyman, companion”), German Maat (“naval non-commissioned officer”). Cognates include Saterland Frisian Moat (“friend, buddy, comrade, mate”), Dutch maat (“mate, partner, colleague, friend”). More at Old English ġe-, English co-, English meat. Doublet of maat.
2. Compare typologically Latin compāniō (whence companion) (< con- + panis + -ō), Russian однока́шник (odnokášnik) (< одно- (odno-) + ка́ша (káša) + -ник (-nik)). See: Middle English Nouns '
mate', Middle English Nouns '
mett', Old English Nouns '
ġemetta', Old English Nouns '
mete', German Nouns '
Maat', Dutch Nouns '
maat', English Nouns '
meat'.
Verbs referencing "mate"
German Nouns
Maat.