messmate

American  

[mes-mayt] / ˈmɛsˌmeɪt /

noun

1. a person, especially a friend, who is a member of a group regularly taking meals together, as in an army camp.

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messmate British  

/ ˈmɛsˌmeɪt /

noun

1. a person with whom one shares meals in a mess, esp in the army

2. any of various eucalyptus trees that grow amongst other species

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Etymology

Origin of messmate

First recorded in 1720–30; mess + mate ¹

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Example Sentences

See Examples For:

messmate

To chip away at the mystery, Moore and his colleagues analyzed the feces of koalas that fed exclusively on manna gum and compared it with those that prefer messmate.

From Washington Post ● Aug. 23, 2019

Many of the Cape Otway koalas wouldn’t touch the stuff and starved to death, with the messmate trees in plain view.

From Washington Post ● Aug. 23, 2019

But the bacteria found inside those that received messmate microbes changed a lot.

From Washington Post ● Aug. 23, 2019

The others got fecal transplants from wild-caught koalas living in and dining on messmate.

From Washington Post ● Aug. 23, 2019

I should consequently have been very ill off, had not my kind friend and messmate, Major Balvaird, lent me his tent and bed, as he himself had been ordered on picquet.

From Twenty-Five Years in the Rifle Brigade by William Surtees

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