Crossword Dictionary

What's The Definition Of Ate?

\Ate\ (?; 277), the preterit of {Eat}.
\A"te\, n. [Gr. ?.] (Greek. Myth.) The goddess of mischievous folly; also, in later poets, the goddess of vengeance.
\-ate\ [From the L. suffix -atus, the past participle ending of verbs of the 1st conj.] 1. As an ending of participles or participial adjectives it is equivalent to -ed; as, situate or situated; animate or animated. 2. As the ending of a verb, it means to make, to cause, to act, etc.; as, to propitiate (to make propitious); to animate (to give life to). 3. As a noun suffix, it marks the agent; as, curate, delegate. It also sometimes marks the office or dignity; as, tribunate. 4. In chemistry it is used to denote the salts formed from those acids whose names end -ic (excepting binary or halogen acids); as, sulphate from sulphuric acid, nitrate from nitric acid, etc. It is also used in the case of certain basic salts.