Ate \A"te\, n. [Gr. ?.]

(Greek. Myth.) The goddess of mischievous folly; also, in later poets, the goddess of vengeance.

Source: Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913)
 

Ate \Ate\ (?; 277), the preterit of Eat.

Source: Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913)
 

-ate \-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.

Source: Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913)
 

Eat \Eat\ ([=e]t), v. t. [imp. Ate ([=a]t; 277), Obsolescent & Colloq. Eat ([e^]t); p. p. Eaten ([=e]t"'n), Obs. or Colloq. Eat ([e^]t); p. pr. & vb. n. Eating.]

[OE. eten, AS. etan; akin to OS. etan, OFries. eta, D. eten, OHG. ezzan, G. essen, Icel. eta, Sw. ["a]ta, Dan. [ae]de, Goth. itan, Ir. & Gael. ith, W. ysu, L. edere, Gr. 'e`dein, Skr. ad. [root]6. Cf. Etch, Fret to rub, Edible.]

1. To chew and swallow as food; to devour; -- said especially of food not liquid; as, to eat bread. ``To eat grass as oxen.'' --Dan. iv. 25.

They . . . ate the sacrifices of the dead. --Ps. cvi. 28.

The lean . . . did eat up the first seven fat kine. --Gen. xli. 20.

The lion had not eaten the carcass. --1 Kings xiii. 28.

With stories told of many a feat, How fairy Mab the junkets eat. --Milton.

The island princes overbold Have eat our substance. --Tennyson.

His wretched estate is eaten up with mortgages. --Thackeray.

2. To corrode, as metal, by rust; to consume the flesh, as a cancer; to waste or wear away; to destroy gradually; to cause to disappear.

To eat humble pie. See under Humble.

To eat of (partitive use). ``Eat of the bread that can not waste.'' --Keble.

To eat one's words, to retract what one has said. (See the Citation under Blurt.)

To eat out, to consume completely. ``Eat out the heart and comfort of it.'' --Tillotson.

To eat the wind out of a vessel (Naut.), to gain slowly to windward of her.

Syn: To consume; devour; gnaw; corrode.

Source: Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913)