mate

Multiple Entries:
  mate    maté  

Concise Oxford English Dictionary © 2008 Oxford University Press:
mate1

▶noun

• 1 Brit. informal a friend or companion.

• 2 [in combination] a fellow member or joint occupant: his table-mates.

• 3 the sexual partner of a bird or other animal.

• 4 chiefly Brit. an assistant or deputy in some trades: a plumber's mate.

• 5 an officer on a merchant ship subordinate to the master. See also first mate.

▶verb

• 1 (with reference to animals or birds) come or bring together for breeding; copulate.

• 2 join or connect mechanically.

– derivatives
mateless adjective.

– origin ME: from Mid. Low Ger. māt(e) ‘comrade’, of W. Gmc origin.

Concise Oxford English Dictionary © 2008 Oxford University Press:
mate2

▶noun & verb Chess short for checkmate.

– origin ME: from Anglo-Norman Fr. mat, from the phr. eschec mat (see checkmate), and Anglo-Norman Fr. mater ‘to checkmate’.

Concise Oxford English Dictionary © 2008 Oxford University Press:
maté /ˈmateɪ/ (also yerba maté)

▶noun

• 1 (also maté tea) a bitter infusion made from the leaves of a South American shrub, which is high in caffeine.

• 2 the shrub of the holly family which produces these leaves. [Ilex paraguariensis.]

– origin C18: from Sp. mate ‘calabash’, from Quechua mati.