Word.ws English Dictionary

nates

UK/ˈneɪtiːz/

nates noun: the two anterior of the four lobes on the dorsal side of the midbrain of most mammals; the anterior optic lobes.

Noun

nates pl (plural only)

  1. (plural, plural-only) The two anterior of the four lobes on the dorsal side of the midbrain of most mammals; the anterior optic lobes.
  2. (plural, plural-only) The buttocks.
    • Enderby watched her warily as she lay prone, having kicked the clothes off the bed, her nates silvered by the Roman moonlight to the likeness of a meringue.1963, Anthony Burgess, Inside Mr Enderby
    • He sat cross-legged on a damask pillow and scrutinized the pale puckered nates with the air of an epicure examining a fly in his vichyssoise.1982, TC Boyle, Water Music, Penguin, published 2006, page 3
  3. (plural, plural-only) The umbones of a bivalve shell.

Proper noun capitalized: Nates

Nates

  1. (plural) plural of Nate

Origin of nates

From Latin natēs, plural of natis.

Words that rhyme with nates

Questions about nates

What does nates mean?
Nates means the two anterior of the four lobes on the dorsal side of the midbrain of most mammals; the anterior optic lobes.
What part of speech is nates?
Nates can be a noun or a proper noun.
How do you pronounce nates?
Nates is pronounced /ˈneɪtiːz/ (UK).

Words near nates in the dictionary

  1. nateglinide
  2. nater
  3. Natera
  4. Nateras
  5. naters
  6. nates
  7. NATFHE
  8. Nath
  9. Nathalee
  10. Nathalia
  11. Nathalie

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: nates (page history and authors); Nates (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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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-nates.wav.

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