Showing results for "ate"

• past tense form of eat.

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• ate
  ate

  verb

  simple past tense of eat.
• Ate
  Ate

  noun

  an ancient Greek goddess personifying the fatal blindness or recklessness that produces crime and the divine punishment that follows it.
• ATE
  ATE

  equipment that makes a series of tests automatically.
• -ate
  -ate

  a suffix occurring in loanwords from Latin, its English distribution paralleling that of Latin. The form originated as a suffix added to a- stem verbs to form adjectives (separate ). The resulting form could also be used independently as a noun (advocate ) and came to be used as a stem on which a verb could be formed (separate; advocate; agitate ). In English the use as a verbal suffix has been extended to stems of non-Latin origin: calibrate; acierate .

ate

¹ American  

[eyt, et] / eɪt, ɛt /

verb

1. simple past tense of eat.

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Ate ² American  

[ey-tee, ah-tee] / ˈeɪ ti, ˈɑ ti /

noun

1. an ancient Greek goddess personifying the fatal blindness or recklessness that produces crime and the divine punishment that follows it.

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ATE ³ American  

1. equipment that makes a series of tests automatically.

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-ate ⁴ American  

1. a suffix occurring in loanwords from Latin, its English distribution paralleling that of Latin. The form originated as a suffix added to a- stem verbs to form adjectives (separate ). The resulting form could also be used independently as a noun (advocate ) and came to be used as a stem on which a verb could be formed (separate; advocate; agitate ). In English the use as a verbal suffix has been extended to stems of non-Latin origin: calibrate; acierate .

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-ate ⁵ American  

1. a specialization of -ate, used to indicate a salt of an acid ending in -ic , added to a form of the stem of the element or group: nitrate; sulfate .

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-ate ⁶ American  

1. a suffix occurring originally in nouns borrowed from Latin, and in English coinages from Latin bases, that denote offices or functions (consulate; triumvirate; pontificate ), as well as institutions or collective bodies (electorate; senate ); sometimes extended to denote a person who exercises such a function (magistrate; potentate ), an associated place (consulate ), or a period of office or rule (protectorate ). Joined to stems of any origin, ate3 signifies the office, term of office, or territory of a ruler or official (caliphate; khanate; shogunate ).

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-ate ¹ British  

suffix

1. (forming adjectives) possessing; having the appearance or characteristics of

   fortunate

   palmate

   Latinate

2. (forming nouns) a chemical compound, esp a salt or ester of an acid

   carbonate

   stearate

3. (forming nouns) the product of a process

   condensate

4. forming verbs from nouns and adjectives

   hyphenate

   rusticate

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-ate ² British  

suffix

1. denoting office, rank, or a group having a certain function

   episcopate

   electorate

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Ate ³ British  

/ ˈɑːtɪ, ˈeɪtɪ /

noun

1. Greek myth a goddess who makes men blind so that they will blunder into guilty acts

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ate ⁴ British  

/ eɪt, ɛt /

verb

1. the past tense of eat

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Etymology

Origin of Ate²

< Greek, special use of átē reckless impulse, ruin, akin to aáein to mislead, harm

Origin of ATE³

a(utomatic) t(est) e(quipment)

Origin of -ate⁴

< Latin -ātus (masculine), -āta (feminine), -ātum (neuter), equivalent to -ā- thematic vowel + -tus, -ta, -tum past participle suffix

Origin of -ate⁵

Probably originally in New Latin phrases, as plumbum acetātum salt produced by the action of acetic acid on lead

Origin of -ate⁶

< Latin -ātus (genitive -ātūs ), generalized from v. derivatives, as augurātus office of an augur ( augurā(re) to foretell by augury + -tus suffix of v. action), construed as derivative of augur augur ¹

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

ate Ate ATE -ate

Neither group was given a calorie target or told to limit how much they ate.

From Science Daily ● Aug. 17, 2026

It was first popularized in the 1970s by an American researcher who noticed how people ate and lived in parts of Italy and Greece.

From MarketWatch ● Aug. 16, 2026

Dar Lbahja and Wadadli also saw bumps in orders of the dishes that Davis and Neff ate.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 16, 2026

Mohamed Al-Hamdani, a Democratic member of Montgomery County’s Board of Elections, which received similar inquiries, said they amounted to “witch hunts” that ate up staff time.

From Salon ● Aug. 15, 2026

I ate one of the cakes and gave the rest to the dogs.

From "Black Star, Bright Dawn" by Scott O'Dell

We did talk about this a good deal during our series two years ago, “How Originalism Ate the Law.”

From Slate ● Aug. 16, 2026

On the final page of “The Snakes That Ate Florida,” Mr. Frazier invokes another great scribbler, E.B.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jan. 23, 2026

“Yeah, people are really going to hate her next book, ‘Kristi Noem: Then I Ate It.’”

From New York Times ● Apr. 30, 2024

Adam is a former co-presenter of Blue Peter and also worked on the panel show The Dog Ate My Homework on CBBC.

From BBC ● Oct. 12, 2022

I write on the piece of paper Ate pizza last week.

From "It’s Kind of a Funny Story" by Ned Vizzini

The former farmhouse had been sold in July by Marston's to ATE Farms Limited.

From BBC ● Oct. 4, 2023

It had been sold by brewers Marston's to ATE Farms Limited in July, just weeks before the demolition took place.

From BBC ● Sep. 28, 2023

His wife, Carly, controls the company ATE Farms Limited, which bought the "wonky" Black Country landmark in July.

From BBC ● Aug. 15, 2023

Those part-time offerings have so far been underwhelmed with applicants, but some full-time ATE programs are S.R.O.

From Time Magazine Archive

Note that the endings of the acids are OUS and IC; also that the names of their salts end in ITE and ATE.

From An Introduction to Chemical Science by Rufus Phillips Williams

Note that there is a system for naming some polyatomic ions; -ate and -ite are suffixes designating polyatomic ions containing more or fewer oxygen atoms.

From Textbooks ● Feb. 14, 2019

Nodulose -us -ate: with small nodes or nodules: a surface sculpture of knots or links, connected by an undulating line.

From Explanation of Terms Used in Entomology by John. B. Smith

Elongata -ate: drawn out; lengthened; much longer than wide.

From Explanation of Terms Used in Entomology by John. B. Smith

An acid terminating in -ous forms a salt ending in -ite, and an oxyacid ending in -ic forms a salt ending in -ate.

From Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 1 "Châtelet" to "Chicago" by Various

Verb Suffixes -ate -fy -ise -ize = to make; render; perform an act.

From New Word-Analysis Or, School Etymology of English Derivative Words by William Swinton

Related Words

• attack
• bite
• chew
• devour
• dine
• feed
• ingest
• inhale
• nibble
• pick
• swallow