Word.ws English Dictionary

mattes

mattes is the plural of matte.

Meaning of matte

Noun

matte (plural mattes)

  1. A decorative border around a picture used to inset and center the contents of a frame.
    • The image is a perfect square of 8 cm (with white matte border the total dimensions are 14 cm tall by 11 cm wide).
  2. A background, often painted or created with computers
    • Matte painting is a tool that filmmakers can use to create a scene that is impossible to achieve with conventional cinematographic means.
  3. The molten metal sulfide phases typically formed during smelting of copper, nickel, and other base metals.
  4. An instrument for producing a dull, lustreless surface.

See all 6 meanings of matte

Proper noun capitalized: Mattes

Mattes (plural Matteses)

  1. A surname from German.

Forms of mattes

pluralMatteses

Origin of mattes

Borrowed from German Mattes, from a vernacular form of Matthias (“Matthew”).

Phrases with mattes

Questions about mattes

What does mattes mean?
Mattes means a surname from German.
What is mattes the plural of?
Mattes is the plural of matte.
What part of speech is mattes?
Mattes is a proper noun.

Words near mattes in the dictionary

  1. mattersome
  2. Matterson
  3. matterwave
  4. matterwaves
  5. mattery
  6. mattes
  7. Matteses
  8. Matteson
  9. Mattesons
  10. Matteucci
  11. Matteucci effect

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: mattes (page history and authors); Mattes (page history and authors); matte (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.

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Cite this entry: “mattes.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/mattes. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.