Word.ws English Dictionary

maté

/ˈmæteɪ/

maté noun: an evergreen tree, Ilex paraguariensis, native to South America, cultivated for its leaves.

maté: an evergreen tree, Ilex paraguariensis, native to South America, cultivated for its leaves
Image: Jorgealfonso, CC BY-SA 2.5, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun

maté (countable and uncountable, plural matés)

  1. (countable) An evergreen tree, Ilex paraguariensis, native to South America, cultivated for its leaves.
    Synonyms:
    yerba mate, yerba
  2. (uncountable) A beverage, resembling tea, made from the dried leaves of this plant.
    • We spent a month in Buenos Aires drinking nothing but maté and Fernet with soda.
    Synonyms:
    maté tea
  3. (countable) A cup of this drink.
  4. (countable, uncommon) The container used to prepare this drink, traditionally a small calabash.
    • The maté is then filled with yerva, after the bombilla has been placed in position.1856 July–October, The Edinburgh New Philosophical Journal, volume IV, A. and C. Black, page 194
    Synonyms:
    gourd

maté meaning in Bengali, Arabic, Persian and Myanmar

maté in Bengali

the beverage maté
মাতে mate

maté in Arabic

shrub that produces the beverage maté
مَتَّة matta
the beverage maté
مَتَة mate

maté in Persian

the beverage maté
ماته

maté in Myanmar

the beverage maté
ကွငျဖျော kwa.ngya.hpyau:

Synonyms of maté

Forms of maté

pluralmatés
alternative formmate
alternative formmatë

Origin of maté

Borrowed from Spanish mate, from Quechua mati. Here, as well as in the matë variant, the unetymologically accented e serves the purpose in English of marking that vowel as pronounced, as in latte, rather than silent as in mate.

Words formed from maté

Phrases with maté

Words that rhyme with maté

Questions about maté

What does maté mean?
Maté means an evergreen tree, Ilex paraguariensis, native to South America, cultivated for its leaves.
What is maté in Bengali?
Maté in Bengali is মাতে (mate). See Maté meaning in Bengali.
What part of speech is maté?
Maté is a noun.
How do you pronounce maté?
Maté is pronounced /ˈmæteɪ/ (UK).
What is the plural of maté?
The plural of maté is matés.

Words near maté in the dictionary

  1. matzos
  2. matzot
  3. matzoth
  4. matzoun
  5. Matzu
  6. maté
  7. matériel
  8. matériels
  9. matés
  10. matë
  11. MAU

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: maté (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: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-maté.wav.

Cite this entry: “maté.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/mat%C3%A9. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.