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mat

Pronunciation: /mæt/

The English word “mat” has 10 meanings listed here.

noun

  1. A flat piece of coarse material used for wiping one’s feet, or as a decorative or protective floor covering.
  2. A small flat piece of material used to protect a surface from anything hot or rough; a coaster.
  3. A floor pad to protect athletes.
  4. A thickly tangled mess.
  5. A thin layer of woven, non-woven, or knitted fiber that serves as reinforcement to a material.
  6. A thin surface layer; superficial cover.
  7. An alloy of copper, tin, iron, etc.; white metal.
  8. Vulgar, obscene, or profane language in Russian and some other Slavic language communities.

verb

  1. To cover, protect or decorate with mats.
  2. To form a thick, tangled mess; to interweave into, or like, a mat; to entangle.

Etymology

Inherited from Middle English matte (“mat”), from Old English meatte (“mat”), from Late Latin matta (“mat made of rushes”), from Punic or Phoenician (compare Hebrew מיטה \ מִטָּה (mitá, “bed, couch”)). Cognate with German Matte (“mat”), Danish måtte (“mat”), Faroese and Icelandic motta (“rug, mat”), Norwegian matte (“mat, rug”), Swedish matta (“carpet, rug, mat”).

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Definitions are from Wiktionary, extracted by Kaikki.org, and are available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.