metate

American  

[muh-tah-tee, me-tah-te] / məˈtɑ ti, mɛˈtɑ tɛ /

noun

• metates
  plural

1. a flat stone that has a shallow depression in the upper surface for holding maize or other grains to be ground with a mano.

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Other Word Forms

Noun Inflected Forms

• metates
  plural

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Etymology

Origin of metate

1825–35, < Mexican Spanish < Nahuatl metlatl

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Example Sentences

See Examples For:

metate metates

The woman's mother had buried her molcajete, metate, comal, and cazuelas in a hole in the ground and fled.

From Salon ● Feb. 23, 2023

Each of the seating areas has a bench shaped like a metate and a brand that marks the cattle of that region.

From Los Angeles Times ● Dec. 2, 2021

In a shaded courtyard overgrown with succulents, Margarita, with her graying pigtails and brightly embroidered apron, had crushed rice, which had been soaking for an hour or so, on a metate, a hollowed, mortarlike stone.

From New York Times ● Nov. 11, 2021

An original mano and metate, a pair of stones used for grinding, lay on the dirt floor of one room.

From Slate ● Jun. 12, 2015

Rubbing stones used with a coarse metate for shucking and cracking corn.

From Illustrated Catalogue of the Collections Obtained from the Pueblos of Zuñi, New Mexico, and Wolpi, Arizona, in 1881 Third Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology to the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, 1881-82, Government Printing Office, Washington, 1884, pages 511-594 by James Stevenson

The metates also display many puzzling pseudo-glyphs on them that have yet to be studied and deciphered.

From National Geographic

Some archaeologists believe the metates may have been used not just as thrones, but also as seats for carrying the bundled and decorated bodies of the dead to their final resting place.

From National Geographic

The metates are arranged in the usual manner, three in a row, but there is an additional detached section placed at right angles to the main series.

From A Study of Pueblo Architecture: Tusayan and Cibola Eighth Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology to the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, 1886-1887, Government Printing Office, Washington, 1891, pages 3-228 by Henry Hobart Nichols

Rarely if ever was any object found in these rooms, except, perhaps, some stray axe, or some metates and grinding stones, and in one case a square stone paint pot.

From Unknown Mexico, Volume 1 (of 2) A Record of Five Years' Exploration Among the Tribes of the Western Sierra Madre; In the Tierra Caliente of Tepic and Jalisco; and Among the Tarascos of Michoacan by Carl Lumholtz

In each compartment one of these metates or grinding stones is firmly set at a proper angle to make it convenient to the kneeling female grinder.

From Illustrated Catalogue Of The Collections Obtained From The Indians Of New Mexico And Arizona In 1879 Second Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology to the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, 1880-81, Government Printing Office, Washington, 1883, pages 307-428 by James Stevenson

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