mating

Pluralmatings

1. 1
   nouncountable or uncountable

   The pairing of two organisms with one another for the purpose of copulation.

   The mating of these salmon happens only once in their lifetime.

   Researchers recorded several matings among the captive pandas.

   Similarpairing, coupling, breeding, copulation

   Note

   In laboratory breeding a mating is a unit you can count and classify. Henry Foster's The Mouse in Biomedical Research (1981) sorts backcrosses, intercrosses and incrosses as types of matings. That countable use, with its plural matings, sets it apart from the act of copulation. Here the emphasis falls on which two animals are paired, not on the act itself.

2. 2
   nouncountable or uncountable

   The sexual union of two organisms; the act of copulation.

   Mating in fruit flies has been studied closely to understand reproduction.

   The brief mating of these frogs takes place in shallow water.

   Similarcopulation, coupling, intercourse, breeding

   Note

   The act itself is usually treated as uncountable (mating in fruit flies), and it readily modifies another noun to name behavior built around the act. William E. Conner's "An Acoustic Arms Race" (American Scientist, 2013) describes ghost swift moths forming mating clusters just above vegetation, where they hide from bats in the echo clutter of leaves. In that attributive slot, the word names the occasion rather than the pairing.

3. 3
   verb

   Present participle of mate.

   The salmon are mating in the gravel beds upstream.

   Mating among these insects happens only at dusk.

   Note

   Because mate works both with and without an object, this participle does too. Animals can simply be mating, or breeders can be mating two animals, and an engineer can be mating two parts. The spelling is shared with the nouns. A gerund still behaves like a verb and takes an object (mating the pair), while the noun takes articles and plurals (a mating, several matings).

   The breeders are mating the two lines to test the cross.

   The fitter is mating the shaft to the housing.

4. 4
   adjective

   Shaped to fit into or onto a corresponding part, like a plug and its socket.

   The mating flanges must be aligned before the bolts are tightened.

   A thin gasket sits between the two mating surfaces to prevent leaks.

   Similarmatching, corresponding, complementary

   Note

   An adjective made from the verb's fitting sense, mate as "fit together without space between." It is not comparable: two parts either mate or they do not, so nothing is "more mating" than another. It normally sits before the noun it describes, as in mating surfaces, mating flanges and mating parts, and it is the engineering cousin of the verb form, not of the biological nouns.

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