mare's teat

English

Noun

mare's teat (plural mare's teats)

1. Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see mare,‎ teat.
2. A variety of wine grape from the Central Asian oases with distinctively shaped, brownish-purple fruit.
   • 1999, Catharina Y.W. Ang, Keshun Liu, Yao-Wen Huang, Asian Foods: Science and Technology, →ISBN, page 391:

     Incidentally, a famous wine grape brought in from the Silk Road, still being used to make wine in the Northwest, is called mare's teat (perhaps because of its shape); because in Chinese the same word is used for both "teat" and "milk," it is sometimes incorrectly rendered in English as "kumiss grape."

   • 2004, Frances Wood, The Silk Road: Two Thousand Years in the Heart of Asia, →ISBN, page 67:

     They also carried the special mare's teat grapes from the oasis of Khocho (packed in ice in lead containers) and sold luxury goods from the west to the Chinese: Sassanian silverware from Persia which had a huge influence on Chinese silverwork, glass vessels and beads from Syria and Babylon, amber from the Baltic, Mediterranean coral, brass for Buddhist images, and purple woollen cloth from Rome.

   • 2009, David Foster, Sons of the Rumour, →ISBN:

     I partied at Aksu until they began to tire of me and started asking whether I wouldn't prefer to pay for my mare's teat grape wine.

   • 2010, Guy Gavriel Kay, Under Heaven:

     “I have not tasted mare's teat wine in more than two years,” he said. “I should be honoured to be your guest. Shall we invite the prefect to join us?”

   • 2011, Peter Ward, Dragon Horse, →ISBN, page 51:

     'Excellent!' he exclaimed. 'The finest sweet wine, made from the best mare's teat grapes in Kocho - a valued ally in these troubled times.'

Anagrams

• masterate, mate's rate, metatarse