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.

---

Other Word Forms

Noun Inflected Forms

• metates
  plural

Etymology

Origin of metate

1825–35, < Mexican Spanish < Nahuatl metlatl

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

Now and then she flicked bits of cinnamon onto the pocked ashen surface of the metate.

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

The metate, or hand mill, which consists of a concave tablet and a rubbing stone, was an important adjunct to the household appliances of nearly all the more cultured American nations.

From Ancient art of the province of Chiriqui, Colombia Sixth Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology to the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, 1884-1885, Government Printing Office, Washington, 1888, pages 3-188 by Holmes, William Henry

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

This trough usually contains a series of three metates of varying degrees of coarseness firmly fixed in a slanting position most convenient for the workers.

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 Nichols, Henry Hobart

They make very little pottery, but we found stored in many of the houses of the village great quantities of stone implements, principally large metates and grinding-stones.

From Illustrated Catalogue of the Collections Obtained from the Indians of New Mexico in 1880 Second Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology to the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, 1880-81, Government Printing Office, Washington, 1883, pages 429-466 by Stevenson, James

An abundance of metates, or corn-stones, of a shape not now usual in the neighborhood were exhibited.

From The Battle and the Ruins of Cintla by Brinton, Daniel Garrison