ate
UK/eɪt/
More pronunciations (1)Fewer pronunciations
Canada[eːt]
ate is the simple past of eat.
ate is the past participle of eat.
Noun
Philippines[ˈʔɐ.te]
ate (plural ates)
Meaning of eat
Verb
eat (third-person singular simple present eats, present participle eating, simple past ate or (dialectal) et or (obsolete) eat, past participle eaten or (dialectal) etten or (nonstandard) ate)
- To consume (something solid or semi-solid, usually food) by putting it into the mouth and swallowing it.
- He's eating an apple.
- To consume a meal.
- What time do we eat this evening?
- Synonyms:
- dine, chow down, feed one's face
- To have a particular quality of diet; to be well-fed or underfed.
- I try to eat healthy these days.
- To be ingested.
- It's a soup that eats like a meal.
- To be savored or enjoyed; to taste in a specified way.
- It's an unattractive dish, but it eats pretty good.
- To destroy, consume, or use up.
- This project is eating up all the money.
Forms of ate
| Verb | |
|---|---|
| alternative pronunciation-spelling (informal) | et |
| Noun | |
| plural | ates |
Origin of ate
Probably a remodelling of earlier eat by analogy with other strong verbs such as break:†brake, give:gave, speak:†spake; compare the same process in rare Middle English at (“ate”) besides more usual et. However, the pronunciation /ɛt/ likely continues Middle English et, from Old English ǣt, from Proto-West Germanic *āt, from Proto-Germanic *ēt, with shortening as in e.g. thread.
Borrowed from Tagalog ate (“elder sister”), from Hokkien 阿姊 (á-ché, “eldest sister”).
Phrases with ate
60 more phrasesFewer phrases
- ate shit
- ate twat
- ate pussy
- ate beaver
- ate cookie
- ate and ran
- ate and run
- ate away at
- ate for two
- ate the mic
- ate the baby
- ate the leek
- ate one's gun
- ate one's hat
- ate one's own
- ate the onion
- ate humble pie
- ate one's fill
- ate boiled crow
- ate like a bird
- ate one's heart
- ate one's pride
- ate one's terms
- ate one's words
- ate one's young
- ate like a horse
- ate something up
- ate one's dinners
- ate someone alive
- ate someone's ass
- ate the seed corn
- ate like an animal
- ate one's emotions
- ate one's feelings
- ate one's head off
- ate one's Wheaties
- ate someone's dust
- ate one's heart out
- ate one's seed corn
- ate someone's heart
- ate someone's lunch
- ate up with a spoon
- who ate all the pies
- ate and left no crumbs
- ate one's own dog food
- my dog ate my homework
- cat that ate the canary
- the dog ate my homework
- ate out of someone's hand
- ate someone for breakfast
- ate the bread of idleness
- how the cow ate the cabbage
- the vine that ate the South
- ate one's cake and had it too
- ate something up with a spoon
- had one's cake and ate it too
- ate someone out of house and home
- ate an elephant one bite at a time
- ate from the palm of someone's hand
- ate out of the palm of someone's hand
Words that rhyme with ate
48 more rhymesFewer rhymes
- mate
- late
- bate
- create
- date
- relate
- vibrate
- wait
- deflate
- fate
- migrate
- rebate
- rotate
- strait
- supererogate
- translocate
- await
- eight
- freight
- skate
- alternate
- collate
- debate
- inflate
- sedate
- update
- compensate
- delate
- dilate
- fixate
- grate
- Haight
- hate
- implicate
- innate
- intercalate
- locate
- mandate
- negate
- overweight
- pinnate
- quadrate
- tate
- vacate
- aerate
- calibrate
- castrate
- conflate
Questions about ate
- What does ate mean?
- Ate means an elder sister.
- What is ate the simple past of?
- Ate is the simple past of eat.
- What part of speech is ate?
- Ate is a noun.
- How do you pronounce ate?
- Ate is pronounced /eɪt/ (UK).
- What is the plural of ate?
- The plural of ate is ates.
Words near ate in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: ate (page history and authors); eat (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-ate.ogg.
Cite this entry: “ate.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/ate. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.