ate
/eɪt/ noun, proper noun
Also a form of eat
Forms ates et Aite
- noun An elder sister
- noun A respectful title or form of address for an older woman.
- proper noun (Greek mythology) A goddess of mischief, delusion, ruin, and folly, the daughter either of Zeus or of Eris.
Etymology
Borrowed from Tagalog ate (“elder sister”), from Hokkien 阿姊 (á-ché, “eldest sister”).
Probably a remodelling of earlier eat by analogy with other strong verbs such as break:†brake, give:gave, speak:†spake; compare the same process in rare Middle English at (“ate”) besides more usual et.
However, the pronunciation /ɛt/ likely continues Middle English et, from Old English ǣt, from Proto-West Germanic *āt, from Proto-Germanic *ēt, with shortening as in e.g. thread.
From Ancient Greek ἄτη (átē).
Webster’s 1913
- noun The goddess of mischievous folly; also, in later poets, the goddess of vengeance.
- noun As an ending of participles or participial adjectives it is equivalent to -ed; as, situate or situated; animate or animated.
Etymology [Gr. (Greek. Myth.) Defn: The goddess of mischievous folly; also, in later poets, the goddess of vengeance. -ATE -ate. Etym: [From the L. suffix -atus, the past participle ending of verbs of the 1st conj.]
Sources: Wiktionary · Webster’s 1913 — from the Wiktionary entry “ate”, CC BY-SA 4.0. Details