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matey

English

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matey¹

Rhymes with -eɪti

adjective matier · matiest

  1. UK Sociable or friendly. You've been very matey with that new bird.

noun mateys

  1. diminutive, informal Diminutive of mate, friend. Hello, matey, just back from the pub?
  2. slang A fellow sailor; often used affectedly, especially when portraying a pirate. Ahoy mateys, scrub the deck!
  3. slang A dockyard worker. He got the dockyard 'mateys' to install a primitive form of steam heating which he had seen in Navy ships […]

matey²

noun mateys

  1. alternative Alternative form of maty (“native house servant in India”).

Matey³

Where it comes from

Variant spelling of Matej.

proper noun Mateys

  1. A surname from the Slavic languages.

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Cite this
MLA

"matey." Wiktionary, via Micwyn, micwyn.com/word/matey. Accessed 6 Nov. 2026.

APA

matey. (n.d.). In Wiktionary, via Micwyn. Retrieved November 6, 2026, from https://micwyn.com/word/matey

Chicago

"matey." Wiktionary, via Micwyn. Accessed November 6, 2026. https://micwyn.com/word/matey.

BibTeX
@misc{matey_2026,
  title = {matey},
  howpublished = {Wiktionary, via Micwyn},
  year = {2026},
  url = {https://micwyn.com/word/matey},
  urldate = {2026-11-06}
}