maté
Pluralmatés (some meanings)
- 1A tea-like beverage made from the dried, crushed leaves of the South American plant Ilex paraguariensis.
She brought back a bag of maté from her trip to Argentina.
Ranch hands sipped maté throughout the long day to stay alert.
Similaryerba
- 2A single serving of maté, the tea-like South American beverage.
He offered her a maté as a sign of welcome.
They shared several matés around the fire that night.
Note
Here the word becomes countable: a maté, two matés, the drink counted one serving at a time. Ask for maté and you mean the drink itself. Offer someone a maté and you are handing over a single cup. The plural takes a plain -s and keeps the accent, matés, so the countable use is easy to spot in writing.
- 3An evergreen South American tree, Ilex paraguariensis, that is farmed for its leaves.
The maté thrives in the humid subtropical climate of the Paraná basin.
Growers harvest the leaves of the maté once every couple of years.
Similaryerba
Note
Behind the name is a borrowing through Spanish mate from Quechua mati. Spanish writes the word without an accent; the English spelling maté adds one, which keeps it apart on the page from the everyday word mate. The unaccented Spanish form survives in yerba mate, often shortened to plain yerba, and either name serves for the tree itself.
Less common meaning
- 4The vessel, traditionally a small calabash gourd, used to prepare and drink maté.
He sipped from the maté through a metal straw called a bombilla.
The maté is then filled with yerva, after the bombilla has been placed in position.
1856, The Edinburgh New Philosophical Journal, volume IVSimilargourd
Note
A rarer use names the vessel rather than what is in it, and gourd is the more usual English word. The Edinburgh New Philosophical Journal of 1856 shows the order of preparation: the bombilla, the metal straw, goes in first, and then the maté is filled with yerva, as the writer spells it. Calabash is traditional, though such vessels are also made of wood, horn or silver.
Practice
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Origin
Borrowed from Spanish "mate," which comes from the Quechua word "mati."