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mat

From Wiktionary, the free dictionary

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See also: Appendix:Variations of "mat"
Languages (39)
Translingual • English
Ainu • Albanian • Atong (India) • Breton • Catalan • Czech • Danish • Dutch • Emilian • Faroese • French • Garo • Gothic • Icelandic • Luxembourgish • Malay • Maricopa • Marshallese • Middle English • Northern Sami • Norwegian Bokmål • Norwegian Nynorsk • Old French • Old Irish • Paipai • Polish • Romanian • Romansch • Semai • Slavomolisano • Slovak • South Efate • Spanish • Swedish • Tok Pisin • Volapük • Welsh
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Translingual

Etymology

Clipping of English Matlatzinca or Spanish matlatzinca.

Symbol

mat

  1. (international standards) ISO 639-3 language code for Matlatzinca.

See also

English

Etymology 1

Inherited from Middle English matte, from Old English meatte, from Late Latin matta, from Punic or Phoenician (compare Hebrew מיטה \ מִטָּה (mitá, “bed, couch”)).

Pronunciation

Noun

mat (plural mats)

  1. A flat piece of coarse material used for wiping one’s feet, or as a decorative or protective floor covering.
    Wipe your feet on the mat before coming in.
  3. A small flat piece of material used to protect a surface from anything hot or rough; a coaster.
    They put mats on the table during mealtimes.
  4. (athletics) A floor pad to protect athletes.
    The high jumper cleared the bar and landed safely on the mat.
  5. A thickly tangled mess.
    a mat of weeds
    • 1953, Samuel Beckett, Watt, [Paris]: Olympia Press, →OCLC:
      But to return to where we left her, I see her still, propped up in a kind of stupor against one of the walls in which this wretched edifice abounds, her long grey greasy hair framing in its cowl of scrofulous mats a face where pallor, languor, hunger, acne, recent dirt, immemorial chagrin and surplus hair seemed to dispute the mastery.
  6. A thin layer of woven, non-woven, or knitted fiber that serves as reinforcement to a material.
  7. A thin surface layer; superficial cover.
    Iceland moss growing in a mat
    • 2016 November 15, Donald R. Prothero, The Princeton Field Guide to Prehistoric Mammals‎, page 222:
      The fad for blaming all mass extinctions (such as happened at the end of the Cretaceous when the dinosaurs vanished) on impacts of objects from space was extended to the Pleistocene in 2007. That year a group of scientists proposed that the North American extinctions were due to a comet or meteorite impact over the Carolinas, near the beginning of the Younger Dryas event, about 12,900 years ago. The original evidence for this supposed impact was a "black mat" of organic material in many Clovis sites, plus microscopic nano-diamonds in deep-sea cores, and rare Platinum group metals in Greenland ice cores from around 12,900 years ago.
Derived terms
Descendants
  • Tok Pisin: mat
  • → Japanese: マット (matto)
  • → Russian: мат (mat)
  • → Spanish: mat
  • → Welsh: mat
Translations
The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.
Translations to be checked

Verb

mat (third-person singular simple present mats, present participle matting, simple past and past participle matted)

  1. (transitive) To cover, protect or decorate with mats.
  2. (intransitive) To form a thick, tangled mess; to interweave into, or like, a mat; to entangle.
Derived terms
Translations

Etymology 2

    Noun

    mat (plural mats)

    1. (video games slang, chiefly in the plural) Clipping of material.
      I used up all my mats cranking 90s and ended up getting one-pumped.
      • 2019 October 24, Christopher Groux, “'Fortnite' Weapon Upgrade Guide - Upgrade Bench Locations & More”, in Newsweek‎, New York, N.Y.: Newsweek Publishing LLC, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 30 March 2023:
        Using a Weapon Upgrade Bench, it's possible to upgrade a Common Shotgun, for example, all the way to Legendary provided you've harvested enough mats to do so.
      • [2020 November 28, Gökhan Çakır, “Common Fortnite terms and their meanings”, in Dot Esports‎, archived from the original on 21 May 2023:
        While there are game modes where you can build without any requirements, you'll need to harvest materials to build in normal Fortnite games. Mats is the shortened version of materials.]
      • 2021 September 25, Alan Bernal, “Viral Fortnite TikTok trick shows how to use Armored Walls for easy kills”, in Dexerto‎, archived from the original on 26 October 2021:
        Fortnite added a new trap with the Armored Wall reinforcement for mats and one viral TikTok showed just how deadly the new item can be in a close fight.
      • 2022 July 16, Sarthak Chauhan, “Fortnite YouTuber using 1000 mats in less than 30 seconds shows exactly what not to do”, in Sportskeeda‎, archived from the original on 29 May 2023:
        The looper goes on laying more than a thousand mats in thirty seconds. He finally reaches his opponent, who is easily brought down with a shell of a shotgun and a burst of an SMG. Upon eliminating the opponent, he is ecstatic in celebration.

    Etymology 3

      Compare matte.

      Alternative forms

      Noun

      mat (plural mats)

      1. (coppersmithing) An alloy of copper, tin, iron, etc.; white metal.
      2. Alternative form of matte (“instrument for producing a dull, lustreless surface”).

      Verb

      mat (third-person singular simple present mats, present participle matting, simple past and past participle matted)

      1. Alternative form of matte (“to produce a dull, lustreless surface on metal”).

      Etymology 4

        A clipped form of matinee.

        Noun

        mat (plural mats)

        1. (dated slang) Abbreviation of matinee (“performance at a theater”).
          • 1898, The Hotel/Motor Hotel Monthly, volume 6, page 27:
            A gents' toilet room might be found in a house that caters for the cheaper class of theatrical patronage, where the slangy language of the "goin' to the mat this aft?" style prevails. A gents toilet room is not found in the Southern Hotel. It either "men's" or "gentlemen's".

        Etymology 5

          Noun

          mat (plural mats)

          1. Alternative spelling of matte (“decorative border around a picture”).
            the mat of a daguerreotype

          Adjective

          mat

          1. Alternative form of matte (“not reflecting light”).
            • 2013, K. A. Spencer, Agromyzidae (Diptera) of Economic Importance, page 264:
              Frons mat black, orbits slightly paler, more greyish; mesonotum distinctly mat, greyish-black, but with some subshine; […]

          Etymology 6

            Noun

            mat (plural mats)

            1. (printing) Clipping of matrix.

            Etymology 7

            From Russian мат (mat), abbreviated from the expression ма́терная брань (máternaja branʹ), ultimately from мать (matʹ, “mother”).

            Noun

            mat (uncountable)

            1. Vulgar, obscene, or profane language in Russian and some other Slavic language communities.
              • 1991 September 16, Michael Rabinovich, “Profanity in the USSR”, in soc.culture.soviet‎ (Usenet), archived from the original on 15 August 2025:
                Most teenagers go through times when they use mat "rather heavily" among themselves. I guess they associate it with being adults. In most cases though this goes away pretty fast, usually when they start dating girls. Using mat rather heavily after graduating from university is a differnet[sic] matter.
              • 1993 March 31, Elena Tsifrina, “let's collect MAT”, in soc.culture.soviet‎ (Usenet), archived from the original on 15 August 2025:
                Don't you people have anything better to do than collecting mat. I still can't undestand why people in (and from) the ex-USSR like to swear so much.
              • 1993 June 22, Boris A. Veytsman, “Russian "mat" and Russian mentality”, in talk.politics.soviet‎ (Usenet), archived from the original on 15 August 2025:
                As the Russian mentality (hopefully) will be less medieval, mat will lose its social role. It will be less frequently used in the spoken language. From the other hand, books will lose its medieval sacrality, and mat will be allowed to be printed.

            Further reading

            See also

            etymologically unrelated terms containing the word "mat"

            Anagrams

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            Ainu

            Pronunciation

            Noun

            mat (Kana spelling マッ)

            1. (mainly in compounds) woman, female
            2. wife
              mat etun
              take a wife

            Verb

            mat (Kana spelling マッ)

            1. take a wife
              te wano anak mat ka a=kor kusu ne.
              From now on, I'm going to get a wife, too.

            Synonyms

            Antonyms

            • (antonym(s) of “woman”): okkayo (“man”)
            • (antonym(s) of “wife”): hoku (“husband”)

            Derived terms

            • matne (“female”)

            Albanian

            Atong (India)

            Breton

            Catalan

            Czech

            Danish

            Dutch

            Emilian

            Faroese

            French

            Garo

            Gothic

            Icelandic

            Luxembourgish

            Malay

            Maricopa

            Marshallese

            Middle English

            Northern Sami

            Norwegian Bokmål

            Norwegian Nynorsk

            Old French

            Old Irish

            Paipai

            Polish

            Romanian

            Romansch

            Semai

            Slavomolisano

            Slovak

            South Efate

            Spanish

            Swedish

            Tok Pisin

            Volapük

            Welsh

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