cate

plural cates

1. in pluralA delicacy or item of food.

   All cates and dainties shall be stored there / Quickly on this feast-night: [...]

   1819, John Keats, “The Eve of St. Agnes”, in Lamia, Isabella, the Eve of St. Agnes, and Other Poems, London: […] [Thomas Davison] for Taylor and Hessey, […], published 1820, →OCLC, stanza XX, page 93, lines 172–173

   3 more examples

   Kate of Kate-hall, my super-daintie Kate, / For dainties are all Kates, and therefore Kate / Take this of me, Kate of my consolation […]

   c. 1590–1592 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Taming of the Shrew”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act I, (please specify the scene number in lowercase Roman numerals)]

   Have we not heard of divers most fertile regions, plenteously yeelding al maner of necessary victuals, where neverthelesse the most ordinary cates [translating méz] and daintiest dishes, were but bread, water-cresses, and water?

   1603, John Florio, translating Michel de Montaigne, Folio Society 2006, vol. 1 p. 101

   He did not at first produce the cates and vintages they expected; they looked, most of them, puzzled at the lack of materials of revelry.

   1985, Anthony Burgess, Kingdom of the Wicked

1. A diminutive of the female given name Catherine.

   Prosopochrysa lemannae is a tiny soldier fly from Judbarra National Park in the Northern Territory. It was named in honour of his colleague Cate Lemann, by Bry the Fly Guy (aka Dr Bryan Lessard), an entomologist at our insect collection.

   2019 July 1, “A Game of Flies: naming 230 new species”, in CSIRO