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South American tea-like drink made from leaves of a South American holly called mate the officer below the master on a commercial ship informal term for a friend of the same sex the partner of an animal (especially a sexual partner); "he loved the mare and all her mates"; "camels hate leaving their mates" South American holly; leaves used in making a drink like tea
Maté, yerba maté , or Paraguay tea, evergreen tree (Ilex paraguariensis) of the family Aquifoliaceae (holly family). From ancient times Native Americans and now millions of Argentines and others in South America have made a tea (also called maté) from the young leaves and tender shoots of Ilex paraguensis, the source of the best brew, and from closely related species. Mate is the most popular beverage in South America, and its culture is an important industry in Brazil and Paraguay. The tea is a stimulant and restorative, less astringent than genuine tea, and contains considerable caffeine. The word mate refers also to the cups in which the tea is infused, which are made from curiously shaped gourds or calabashes, with small openings cut in the top and sometimes decorated with silver mountings. The dried leaves are put in a container and covered with boiling water, and the tea is drunk through abombilla, a tube provided at the lower end with a strainer of fine basketwork, metal, or perforated wood. Mate is classified in the division Magnoliophyta class Magnoliopsida, order Celastrales. a chess move constituting an inescapable and indefensible attack on the opponent''s king an exact duplicate; "when a match is found an entry is made in the notebook" a fellow member of a team; "it was his first start against his former teammates" place an opponent''s king under an attack from which it cannot escape and thus ending the game; "Kasparov checkmated his opponent after only a few moves" bring two objects, ideas, or people together; "This fact is coupled to the other one"; "Matchmaker, can you match my daughter with a nice young man?"; "The student was paired with a partner for collaboration on the project" make love; "Birds mate in the Spring" a person's partner in marriage |
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