Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun Diminution; retrenchment; specifically, an allowance by way of discount or drawback; a deduction from a gross amount.
  • To beat back; drive back by beating; fend or ward off; repulse.
  • To beat down; beat to bluntness; make obtuse or dull, literally or figuratively; blunt; bate.
  • To set or throw off; allow as a discount or abatement; make a drawback of. See the noun.
  • To draw back or away; withdraw; recede.
  • To make a rebate or rabbet in, as a piece of joinery or other work; rabbet.
  • noun A longitudinal space or groove cut back or sunk in a piece of joinery, timber, or the like, to receive the edge of some other part.
  • noun A kind of hard freestone used in pavements.
  • noun A piece of wood fastened to a handle, used for beating mortar.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun (Arch.) A rectangular longitudinal recess or groove, cut in the corner or edge of any body; a rabbet. See rabbet.
  • noun A piece of wood hafted into a long stick, and serving to beat out mortar.
  • noun An iron tool sharpened something like a chisel, and used for dressing and polishing wood.
  • noun rare A kind of hard freestone used in making pavements.
  • transitive verb To beat to obtuseness; to deprive of keenness; to blunt; to turn back the point of, as a lance used for exercise.
  • transitive verb To deduct from; to make a discount from, as interest due, or customs duties.
  • transitive verb To return a portion of a sum paid, as a method of discounting of prices.
  • transitive verb a cross which has the extremities of the arms bent back at right angles, as in the fylfot.
  • transitive verb To cut a rebate in. See rabbet, v.
  • intransitive verb obsolete To abate; to withdraw.
  • noun Diminution.
  • noun (Com.) Deduction; abatement
  • noun A portion of a sum paid, returned to the purchaser, as a method of discounting. The rebate is sometimes returned by the manufacturer, after the full price is paid to the retailer by the purchaser.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun A deduction from an amount to be paid; an abatement
  • noun The return of part of an amount already paid
  • noun A rectangular groove made to hold two pieces (of wood etc) together; a rabbet
  • verb transitive To deduct or return an amount from a bill or payment
  • verb transitive To diminish or lessen something
  • verb transitive To cut a rebate (or rabbet) in something

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • verb cut a rebate in (timber or stone)
  • noun a refund of some fraction of the amount paid
  • noun a rectangular groove made to hold two pieces together
  • verb give a reduction in the price during a sale
  • verb join with a rebate

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Old French rabatre < batre. See also abate.

Support

Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word rebate.

Examples

Comments

Log in or sign up to get involved in the conversation. It's quick and easy.

  • Also to lessen, diminish.

    December 19, 2007

  • I must be properly enabled from that quarter, to pacify her, or, at least, to rebate her first violence.

    Lovelace to Belford, Clarissa by Samuel Richardson

    December 19, 2007

  • to bate again...

    August 10, 2009