ate

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. v. Past tense of eat.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. n. Preterit of eat.
2. n. In Greek myth, an ever-present evil genius leading men on to crime; the goddess of blundering mischief: a personification of the reckless blindness and moral distortion inflicted by the gods in retribution for presumption and wickedness, typifying the self-perpetuating nature of evil.
3. n. A suffix of Latin origin: In adjectives, where -ate is equivalent to and cognate with English -ed, -d, -t, in perfect participles and participial adjectives, the native English suffix being often added to -ate when a verb in -ate exists, as in desolate or desolat-ed, accumulate or accumulat-ed, situate or situat-ed, etc. In many instances the adjective is not accompanied by a verb in -ate, as innate, ornate, temperate, etc.; this is especially true of botanical descriptives, as acuminate, crenate, cuspidate, hastate, lanceolate, serrate, etc.
4. n. In nouns, of persons, as legate, delegate, reprobate, etc., or of things, as mandate, precipitate, etc.; especially, in chem., in nouns denoting a salt formed by the action of an acid on a base, as in acetate, nitrate, sulphate, etc., the suffix being added to the stem (often shortened) of the name of the acid. [The corresponding New Latin forms are acetatum, nitratum, sulphatum, etc., but often erroneously acetas, nitras, sulphas, genitive acetatis, etc., by confusion with -ate.]
5. n. A suffix of Latin origin, a common formative in verbs taken from the Latin, as in accumulate, imitate, militate, etc., or formed in English, either on Latin stems, as in felicitate, capacitate, etc., or on stems of other origin. See etymology.
6. n. A suffix of Latin origin, denoting office, an office, a body of officers, as in consulate, pontificate, decemvirate, senate (Latin senātus, from senex, an old man), episcopate, etc., and sometimes a single officer, as magistrate (Latin magistrātus, properly magistracy, also a magistrate), the suffix in the last use being equivalent to -ate in legate, etc., and to -ate in primate, etc.
7. n. A suffix of Latin origin, practically equivalent to -ate in nouns, and -ate (in magistrate), as in magnate, primate, and (in Latin plural) penates, optimates.
8. n. A suffix of Greek origin, occurring unfelt in pirate (which see).
9. . In chem., serious mistakes may arise in regard to the meaning of this and analogous suffixes by failure to observe the proper use and translation of New Latin forms. New Latin forms as used by Germans are often erroneously translated or transferred into English in druggists' circulars and elsewhere. Thus New Latin calcium sulfuratum, sulfuricum, and sulfurosum as used by Germans answer to what are called in the prevalent abbreviated English phrasing calcium sulphid or sulphide, sulphate, and sulphite respectively.
10. In petrography, a suffix added to the names of grads in the quantitative classification of igneous rocks. See rock.

Wiktionary

1. v. Simple past of eat.

GNU Webster's 1913

1. the preterit of eat.
2. n. (Greek. Myth.) The goddess of mischievous folly; also, in later poets, the goddess of vengeance.

WordNet 3.0

1. n. goddess of criminal rashness and its punishment