enate
Americannoun
adjective
adjective
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biology growing out or outwards
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related on the side of the mother
noun
Usage
What does enate mean? An enate is any relative from your mother’s side of the family, as in When researching her family, Zelda focused on her enates since no one had studied her mother’s family yet. An enate is any person or relative that is related to you through your mother. This would include your mother’s parents (your grandparents), her siblings (your aunts and uncles), and their children (your cousins), as well as any more distant relatives. Your enate relatives do not have to be female themselves. They are enatic because the relationship is through your mother.Enate is used in discussions of human and animal genetics and breeding practices. It’s normally used in direct comparisons with agnates, relatives from the father’s side, and cognates, relatives through either parent. Enate can also be used to describe something as growing out or outwards. In this sense, enate is normally used in discussions of physiology and cell growth and will usually be used in reference to bone structure and development. It is also sometimes used in discussions of botany to discuss such growths in plants.Enate is sometimes mistakenly used for the similar-sounding and similarly spelled word innate.Example: In our research, the first enate showed no sign of genetic change.
Etymology
Origin of enate
< Latin ēnātus, past participle of ēnāscī to issue forth, be born
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
S enate Republicans are forging their own path on the effort to overhaul the U.S. tax code, offering a plan that would delay an immediate corporate tax cut President Trump has demanded and blow up House Republicans’ compromise on a controversial tax deduction.
From Washington Post
Enate, ē′nāt, adj. growing out.
From Project Gutenberg
Enaté, I am here before anybody, I am the mother of the Gods.
From Project Gutenberg
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
