mate
part of speech
noun (a mate, mates); verb (mate, mates, mated, mating)
meaning for a pupil
1) (UK, Australia, NZ, Ireland, informal) A friend: «He's my mate». tree →
2) A person you share something with, as in «classmate», «teammate», «flatmate». tree →
3) The partner of an animal, with which it has babies. tree →
4) (verb) Of animals: to come together to make babies. tree →
5) An officer on a ship («first mate»). tree →
6) In chess, short for «checkmate». tree →
sense in the lessons
In everyday British and Australian speech «mate» is a friendly word, often to say hello or thanks: «Cheers, mate!». In science lessons about life cycles: animals find a mate in spring, birds sing to attract a mate. In stories: «the first mate» on a pirate ship. In chess «mate» ends the game.
examples
- I'm going to the park with my mates. tree →
- Thanks, mate! tree →
- Jamie is my best mate. tree →
- My teammates cheered when I scored. tree →
- Birds sing to attract a mate. tree →
- Penguins often stay with the same mate for years. tree →
- The captain gave orders to the first mate. tree →
- White moved the queen and said «mate». tree →
- I met my mates in the morning, a broken, scattered band. tree →
note
Countable: a mate, mates. «Mate» as «friend» is informal and common in the UK, Ireland, Australia and New Zealand; Americans more often say «buddy» or «pal». It is in many compounds: classmate, playmate, roommate, shipmate.
In the corpora
- At bedtime Mum explains he had an awful week at work, and Dad comes up and says, "Sorry, mate.
- Vivid example: in Wellington, your big brother is about to screenshot his mate's private message and send it to the group.
- Dad pauses it: "They filmed about a hundred hours this week, mate.
- That is still copying, the way repainting your mate's bike doesn't make it your bike.
- Each building solves a problem: keeping cool, keeping eggs away from snakes, or winning a mate.
Trees and pragmatics
Every meaning and example of «mate» parsed by Mova, each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.