mater

See also: mâter, mäter, and måter

English

Etymology 1

From Latin māter (“mother”), partly via Late Middle English matere.

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈmeɪtə/
• (US) IPA^(key): /ˈmeɪtɚ/, /ˈmɑtɚ/
• Rhymes: -eɪtə(ɹ)

Noun

mater (plural maters or matres)

1. (Britain slang, now chiefly archaic or humorous) Mother.
   • 1919, P. G. Wodehouse, ‎A Damsel in Distress‎, page 100:

     Their maters are all pals of my mater, and I don’t want to get them into trouble for aiding and abetting my little show, if you understand what I mean.

   • 1997, Colleen McCullough, Caesar’s Women‎, page 17:

     “Mater, you look well.” / “I am well. And you,” she said in that dryly prosaic deep voice of hers, “look healed.”

Etymology 2

mate +‎ -er

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈmeɪtə/
• (US) IPA^(key): /ˈmeɪtɚ/
• Rhymes: -eɪtə(ɹ)

Noun

mater (plural maters)

1. (biology) Someone or something that mates.

Etymology 3

See 'mater.

Pronunciation

• (US) IPA^(key): /ˈmeɪtɚ/
• Rhymes: -eɪtə(ɹ)

Noun

mater (plural maters)

1. Alternative form of 'mater (“tomato”)
   • 2015, Ann B. Ross, Miss Julia's Marvelous Makeover (→ISBN), page 28:

     "A mater sandwich would be better." Trixie said, "but I'll take it if that's all you got." As if we were woefully deprived of food. So Trixie had a tomato sandwich for lunch, carefully prepared by Lillian but for which she received no thanks.

Anagrams

• METAR, armet, metra, ramet, tamer, terma, trema, tréma

---

French

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ma.te/

• Audio (Paris)

  (file)

Verb

mater

1. to get the better of
2. to checkmate
3. (slang) to ogle, to check out, to watch (e.g. an attractive person)

Conjugation

Conjugation of mater (see also Appendix:French verbs)

present participle		matant /ma.tɑ̃/
past participle		maté /ma.te/
infinitive
simple		mater
compound		avoir + past participle
gerund1
simple		matant /ma.tɑ̃/
compound		ayant + past participle
		singular			plural
		first	second	third	first	second	third
indicative		je (j’)	tu	il, elle	nous	vous	ils, elles
(simple tenses)	present	mate /mat/	mates /mat/	mate /mat/	matons /ma.tɔ̃/	matez /ma.te/	matent /mat/
	imperfect	matais /ma.tɛ/	matais /ma.tɛ/	matait /ma.tɛ/	mations /ma.tjɔ̃/	matiez /ma.tje/	mataient /ma.tɛ/
	past historic2	matai /ma.tɛ/	matas /ma.ta/	mata /ma.ta/	matâmes /ma.tam/	matâtes /ma.tat/	matèrent /ma.tɛʁ/
	future	materai /ma.tʁɛ/	materas /ma.tʁa/	matera /ma.tʁa/	materons /ma.tʁɔ̃/	materez /ma.tʁe/	materont /ma.tʁɔ̃/
	conditional	materais /ma.tʁɛ/	materais /ma.tʁɛ/	materait /ma.tʁɛ/	materions /ma.tə.ʁjɔ̃/	materiez /ma.tə.ʁje/	materaient /ma.tʁɛ/
(compound tenses)	present perfect	present indicative of avoir + past participle
	pluperfect	imperfect indicative of avoir + past participle
	past anterior2	past historic of avoir + past participle
	future perfect	future of avoir + past participle
	conditional perfect	conditional of avoir + past participle
subjunctive		que je (j’)	que tu	qu’il, qu’elle	que nous	que vous	qu’ils, qu’elles
(simple tenses)	present	mate /mat/	mates /mat/	mate /mat/	mations /ma.tjɔ̃/	matiez /ma.tje/	matent /mat/
	imperfect2	matasse /ma.tas/	matasses /ma.tas/	matât /ma.ta/	matassions /ma.ta.sjɔ̃/	matassiez /ma.ta.sje/	matassent /ma.tas/
(compound tenses)	past	present subjunctive of avoir + past participle
	pluperfect2	imperfect subjunctive of avoir + past participle
imperative		–	tu	–	nous	vous	–
simple		—	mate /mat/	—	matons /ma.tɔ̃/	matez /ma.te/	—
compound		—	simple imperative of avoir + past participle	—	simple imperative of avoir + past participle	simple imperative of avoir + past participle	—
1 Only usable with preposition en.
2 In less formal writing or speech, the past historic, past anterior, imperfect subjunctive and pluperfect subjunctive tenses may be found to have been replaced with the indicative present perfect, indicative pluperfect, present subjunctive and past subjunctive tenses respectively (Christopher Kendris [1995], Master the Basics: French, pp. 77, 78, 79, 81).

Further reading

• “mater” in le Trésor de la langue française informatisé (The Digitized Treasury of the French Language).

Anagrams

• marte, trame, tramé, tréma

---

Latin

Etymology

From Proto-Italic *mātēr, from Proto-Indo-European *méh₂tēr. Cognates include Proto-Slavic *mati (thence Russian мать (matʹ)), Persian مادر‎ (mâdar), Mycenaean Greek 𐀔𐀳𐀩 (ma-te-re), and Sanskrit मातृ (mātṛ).

Pronunciation

• (Classical) IPA^(key): /ˈmaː.ter/, [ˈmaː.tɛr]

• Audio (Classical)

  (file)

Noun

māter f (genitive mātris); third declension

1. mother (female parent)
2. mother (source, origin)
3. matron of a house
4. honorific title
5. woman
6. nurse
7. motherland

Inflection

Third declension.

Case	Singular	Plural
Nominative	māter	mātrēs
Genitive	mātris	mātrum
Dative	mātrī	mātribus
Accusative	mātrem	mātrēs
Ablative	mātre	mātribus
Vocative	māter	mātrēs

Derived terms

Terms derived from mater

• alma māter
• mātercula
• māterfamiliās
• māter lectiōnis

• māternus
• mātertera
• mātrālis

• mātrēscō
• mātricīda
• mātrimōnium

• mātrīx
• mātrōna
• mātruēlis

Related terms

Terms related to mater

• māternitās
• mātrīcālis
• mātricīdium

• mātrīcula
• mātrīculārius
• mātrimōniālis

• mātrimus
• mātrōnālis
• mātrōnātus

Descendants

Descendants

edit

• Ido: matro
• Interlingua: matre
• Italo-Dalmatian:
  • Istriot: mare
  • Italian: madre
  • Sicilian: matri
• Ladin: mère
• Lombard: mader
• Middle English: matere
  • English: mater
• Navarro-Aragonese:
  • Aragonese: mai
• Novial: matra
• Old Franco-Provençal: *mādre, māðre
  • Franco-Provençal: mâre
• Old French: medre, mere
  • Middle French: mere
    • French: mère
      • Haitian Creole: mè
  • Norman: mère, méthe
  • Walloon: mere
• Old Leonese:
  • Asturian: madre, ma
  • Extremaduran: mairi
  • Fala: mairi
  • Leonese: mai
  • Mirandese: mai, madre

• Old Portuguese: madre, mãy
  • Galician: mai, nai, madre
  • Portuguese: mãe, madre
    • Angolar: maa
    • Annobonese: mai, me
    • Guinea-Bissau Creole: mai
    • Indo-Portuguese: mãe, mai
    • Kabuverdianu: mai
    • Malaccan Creole Portuguese: mai
    • Principense: mwin
    • Sãotomense: men
    • Tetun Dili: madre
• Old Occitan:
  • Catalan: mare
  • Occitan: maire
• Old Spanish: madre
  • Ladino: madre / מאדרי‎
  • Spanish: madre
    • Tagalog: madre
• Rhaeto-Romance:
  • Friulian: mari
• Venetian: mare

See also

• mamma
• pater

References

• mater in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• mater in Charlton T. Lewis (1891) An Elementary Latin Dictionary, New York: Harper & Brothers
• Carl Meissner; Henry William Auden (1894) Latin Phrase-Book‎^[1], London: Macmillan and Co.
  • son of such and such a father, mother: patre, (e) matre natus
    

---

Norwegian Bokmål

Verb

mater

1. present tense of mate

---

Serbo-Croatian

Noun

mater

1. accusative singular form of mati

Anagrams

• trema, metra

---

Slovak

Etymology

From Proto-Slavic *mati; cognate with Latin māter and Sanskrit मातृ (mātṛ).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈmacɛr/

Noun

mater f (genitive singular matere, nominative plural matere, genitive plural materí, declension pattern of dlaň)

1. mother

Declension

Declension of mater

	singular	plural
nominative	mater	matere
genitive	matere	materí
dative	materi	materiam
accusative	mater	matere
locative	materi	materiach
instrumental	materou	materami

Derived terms

Derived terms

• materina dúška
• materinský

• materný
• materský

• materstvo
• materčina

Further reading

• mater in Slovak dictionaries at korpus.sk