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Mat   /mæt/   Listen
noun
Mat  n.  (Written also matt)  A name given by coppersmiths to an alloy of copper, tin, iron, etc., usually called white metal.



Mat  n.  
1.
A thick flat fabric of sedge, rushes, flags, husks, straw, hemp, or similar material, placed on the floor and used for wiping and cleaning shoes at the door, for covering the floor of a hall or room to protect its surface, and for other purposes.
2.
Any similar flat object made of fabric or other material, such as rubber or plastic, placed flat on a surface for various uses, as for covering plant houses, putting beneath dishes or lamps on a table, securing rigging from friction, and the like.
3.
Anything growing thickly, or closely interwoven, so as to resemble a mat in form or texture; as, a mat of weeds; a mat of hair.
4.
An ornamental border made of paper, pasterboard, metal, etc., put under the glass which covers a framed picture; as, the mat of a daguerreotype.
Mat grass. (Bot.)
(a)
A low, tufted, European grass (Nardus stricta).
(b)
Same as Matweed.
Mat rush (Bot.), a kind of rush (Scirpus lacustris) used in England for making mats.



verb
Mat  v. t.  (past & past part. matted; pres. part. matting)  
1.
To cover or lay with mats.
2.
To twist, twine, or felt together; to interweave into, or like, a mat; to entangle. "And o'er his eyebrows hung his matted hair."



Mat  v. i.  To grow thick together; to become interwoven or felted together like a mat, as hair when wetted with a sticky substance; as, a long-haired cat whose fur is matted.



adjective
Mat  adj.  Cast down; dejected; overthrown; slain. (Obs.) "When he saw them so piteous and so maat."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Mat" Quotes from Famous Books



... MAT. Happy fellow! happy fellows all of them! A man may play against fate if he only prepares his cards—I hold none but good ones in my hand. Ha, ha! They have their skins full of my best wine, and go home happy as kings. Ha, ha! there'll ...
— Standard Selections • Various

... door, and Douglas Stone walked down the narrow passage, glancing about him in some surprise as he did so. There was no oilcloth, no mat, no hat-rack. Deep grey dust and heavy festoons of cobwebs met his eyes everywhere. Following the old woman up the winding stair, his firm footfall echoed harshly through the silent house. There ...
— Round the Red Lamp - Being Facts and Fancies of Medical Life • Arthur Conan Doyle

... he keeps guard. They wear uniform, but are miserable dilapidated-looking creatures, and I have twice seen one fast asleep. In the principal streets night watchmen are stationed in watch-towers, which consist of small mat huts, placed on scaffolds raised far above the house-tops, on bamboo poles bound together with strong cords. These men are on the look-out for armed bands of robbers, but specially for fire. They are provided with tom-toms and small gongs on which ...
— The Golden Chersonese and the Way Thither • Isabella L. Bird (Mrs. Bishop)

... fair growth in spite of the dry season, and after the corn was cut they furnished fine pasture for the brood sows, that ate the peas and trampled down the vines. In the spring ploughing this black mat was turned under, and with it went a store of fertility to fatten the land. Cow peas were sowed in all the corn land in 1897, and the rule of the farm is to sow corn-fields with peas, crimson clover, or some other leguminous plant. As my land is ...
— The Fat of the Land - The Story of an American Farm • John Williams Streeter

... compared with those of Egypt, but the skeleton, at least, is nearly always in an excellent state of preservation; it is only when handled that it tumbles into dust. In the more spacious tombs the body lies upon a mat, with its head upon a cushion. In most cases the remains of bandages and linen cloths were found about it. Mats, cushions, and bandages had all been treated with bitumen. A small terra-cotta model in the British Museum shows a dead ...
— A History of Art in Chaldaea & Assyria, v. 1 • Georges Perrot


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