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ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

meat.

The flesh (muscle tissue) of a killed animal used as food.

4 characters1 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

noun/miːt//mit/General-American[mit̚]General-American[miːʔ]
  1. The flesh (muscle tissue) of a killed animal used as food.

    uncountable
    A large portion of domestic meat production comes from animals raised on factory farms.
    The homesteading teenager shot a deer to supply his family with wild meat for the winter.
  2. A food designed to replicate its taste and texture (such as plant-based meat).

    countable · uncountable
  3. A type of meat, by anatomic position and provenance.

    countable
    The butchery's profit rate on various meats varies greatly.
  4. Food, for animals or humans, especially solid food.

    archaic · countable · dialectal · uncountable
    meat and drink
  5. A type of food, a dish.

    archaic · countable · uncountable
  6. A meal.

    archaic · countable · uncountable
  7. Meal; flour.

    countable · obsolete · uncountable
  8. Any relatively thick, solid part of a fruit, nut etc.

    uncountable
    The apple looked fine on the outside, but the meat was not very firm.
  9. A penis.

    countable · slang · uncountable · vulgar
  10. The best or most substantial part of something.

    colloquial · countable · uncountable
  11. The sweet spot of a bat or club (in cricket, golf, baseball etc.).

    countable · uncountable
    He hit it right on the meat of the bat.
  12. A meathead.

    countable · slang · uncountable
    Throw it in here, meat.
  13. A totem, or (by metonymy) a clan or clansman which uses it.

    countable · uncountable
Where this word comes from

Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *meh₂d-der. Proto-Germanic *matiz Proto-West Germanic *mati Old English mete Middle English mete English meat Inherited from Middle English mete (“food”), from Old English mete (“food”), from Proto-West Germanic *mati (“food”), from Proto-Germanic *matiz (“food”), from Proto-Indo-European *meh₂d- (“to be wet; grease, fat”). Cognates Cognate with North Frisian Miit (“meat”), Danish mad (“food”), Faroese and Icelandic matur (“food, meal”), Norn mader (“food”), Norwegian Bokmål, Norwegian Nynorsk, and Swedish mat (“food”), Gothic 𐌼𐌰𐍄𐍃 (mats, “food”). A -ja- derivation from the same base is found in Middle Dutch and Middle Low German met (“lean pork”), from which Dutch met (“minced pork”) and German Mett (“minced meat”) derive, respectively. Compare also Old Irish mess (“animal feed”) and Welsh mes (“acorns”), English mast (“fodder for swine and other animals”), which are probably from the same root.

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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.