gate

plural gates · alternative yate

1. A doorlike structure outside a house.
2. A doorway, opening, or passage in a fence or wall.

   At 7, he made his exit through the Ch‘ien-ch‘ing and the Lung-tsung gates, and thence, through the Yung-Hang Gate he entered the Tz‘u-ning Palace.

   1870 June [1870 April], “The Peking Gazettes”, in Chinese Recorder and Missionary Journal, volume 3, number 1, Foochow: American Presbyterian Mission Press, →OCLC, page 12, column 1

   Synonyms: doorway, entrance, passage

3. A movable barrier.

   The gate in front of the railroad crossing went up after the train had passed.

4. A passageway (as in an air terminal) where passengers can embark or disembark.
5. A location which serves as a conduit for transport, migration, or trade.

   Lyons and Fisher's stations, who have spared nothing to ensure a success on this point, there is every reason to believe that the Northern Territory will soon be able to make a proper use of her geographical position, and become the gate of the East for all the Australian colonies.

   1887, Harriet W. Daly, Digging, Squatting, and Pioneering Life in the Northern Territory of South Australia, page 246

6. The amount of money made by selling tickets to a concert or a sports event.
7. computingA logical pathway made up of switches which turn on or off. Examples are and, or, nand, etc.

   Synonyms: logic gate

8. businessThe controlling terminal of a field effect transistor (FET).
9. In a lock tumbler, the opening for the stump of the bolt to pass through or into.
10. artsThe channel or opening through which metal is poured into the mould; the ingate; tedge.
11. The waste piece of metal cast in the opening; a sprue or sullage piece. Also written geat and git.
12. ball gamesThe gap between a batsman's bat and pad.

    Singh was bowled through the gate, a very disappointing way for a world-class batsman to get out.

13. broadcastingA mechanism, in a film camera and projector, that holds each frame momentarily stationary behind the aperture.

    After all, not using film has advantages other than cost: the curse of getting a hair in the gate (the rectangular opening at the front of a camera) is gone; the problem of getting dirt on the film swept away.

    2023 March 16, John Boorman, “Today’s ‘films’ are nothing of the sort – so stop calling them that”, in The Guardian, →ISSN

14. flow cytometryA line that separates particle type-clusters on two-dimensional dot plots.
15. A tally mark consisting of four vertical bars crossed by a diagonal, representing a count of five.
16. An individual theme park as part of a larger resort complex with multiple parks.

    At Disneyland Paris, the much-delayed “second gate,” a Walt Disney Studios theme park, opened on March 16.

    2008 December 9, James B. Stewart, Disneywar: The Battle for the Magic Kingdom, Simon and Schuster, →ISBN

    3 more examples

    It would encompass more than 500 acres and include a new theme park, several hotels, two mammoth parking garages with direct access from the freeway and a "third gate" — land set aside for future expansion.

    1993 05, Rich Mannino, “The World According to Disney”, in Orange Coast Magazine, page 83

    Disneyland opened its second gate – Disney's California Adventure. It was located exactly where Westcot would have been, directly across a central plaza from the Disneyland main gate.

    2006 August 1, Shaun Finnie, The Disneylands That Never Were, Lulu.com, →ISBN, page 168

    For its part, Universal is also continuing to grow domestically, with its new second gate in Orlando – Volcano Bay – opening around the same time as Pandora.

    2018 April 16, John Reynolds, Cambridge IGCSE First Language English 4th edition, Hachette UK, →ISBN

17. slangA place where drugs are illegally sold.

    The very first dread I worked with, Dusty, had his gate at 55 Bowen.

    2018, U-God [Lamont Hawkins], Raw: My Journey Into The Wu-Tang, New York, N.Y.: Picador, →ISBN, →OCLC, page 69

    4 more examples

    The gangs were fighting for control of "drug gates," control points for the sale of crack cocaine, heroin and marijuana.

    1996 April 24, “Connecticut: Task Force Successful In Curbing Street Gangs”, in Organized Crime Digest, volume 17, number 9, Annandale, V.A.: Washington Crime News Service, →OCLC, page 2, column 2

    I put more guns in East Coast niggas' hands than East Coast niggas did when they came out here. I put them niggas on to more weed gates and weed spots and safe havens and safe spots than the East Coast did.

    1996 June, Tupac Shakur, quotee, “Inside the Mind of Shakur”, in Tupac Shakur, New York, N.Y.: Three Rivers Press, published 1998, →ISBN, page 101

    The spatial mapping of Jamaica onto U.S. cities entails the erection of dance halls, reggae clubs, smoking yards or "weed gates," select storefront vendors of Rasta apparel, ritual paraphernalia, and ital ("natural" and approved) foods (Hepner 1998: 206).

    2007, Paul Christopher Johnson, Diaspora Conversions: Black Carib Religion and the Recovery of Africa, Berkeley, C.A. […]: University of California Press, →ISBN, page 56

    There's not a gate in the West Side area that lasts longer than a month other than the ones I service. Gates go up and come down just as fast.

    2018, Robert Ricks, Fast Furious & Fatherless: An Urban Tale, [Morrisville, N.C.]: Lulu Publishing Services, →ISBN, page 244

18. datedjive talkA man; a male person.

    Whatcha gonna say there, gate?

    1939, Cab Calloway, Frank Froeba, Jack Palmer, “Jumpin' Jive”

    2 more examples

    He said, "Come on, gates, and jump with me / At the June Teenth Jamboree."

    1940, Louis Jordan, “June Teenth Jamboree”, performed by Louis Jordan and His Tympany Five

    Louie wants you to get in there and lay yo' racket on that writin' machine so all the fine dinners and gates up in the land o' darkness will be hep and truck on down to this frolic pad 'cause the joint's really gonna be jumpin' and everythin' will be fine as wine like watermelon on the vine.

    1944 December 8, “Broadway Jam Session”, in The Tampa Times

    Synonyms: cat, dude, guy, bloke, boy, bro, broski, bruh

19. businessA tunnel serving the coal face.

present singular third person gates · participle present gating · participle past gated · past gated · alternative yate

1. transitiveTo keep something inside by means of a closed gate.
2. datedhistoricaltransitiveOxbridge slangTo punish (a student) by not allowing to leave the college grounds.

   You climbed the wall, for which you ought to be gated; and finally, you came in blotto, for which you ought to be sent down.

   1935, Dorothy L. Sayers, Gaudy Night

   2 more examples

   “I’ve missed two lectures already,” remarked Maurice, who was breakfasting in his pyjamas. “Cut them all — he’ll only gate you.”

   1971, E. M. Forster, chapter 13, in Maurice, Penguin, published 1972, page 72

   Dons could ring the front bell and be admitted after that hour. But students who returned after midnight or who stayed out all night were fined heavily or “gated” – that is, forbidden to leave college for several days.

   2010, Thomas J. Schaeper, Kathleen Schaeper, “Yanks and Brits”, in Rhodes Scholars, Oxford, and the Creation of an American Elite, New York, NY: Berghahn Books, →ISBN, page 52

   Synonyms: ground

3. transitivebiochemistryTo open (a closed ion channel).
4. transitiveTo furnish with a gate.
5. transitiveTo turn (an image intensifier) on and off selectively, as needed or to avoid damage from excessive light exposure. See autogating.
6. transitiveTo selectively regulate or restrict (access to something).

   Access to the building is gated by a security system.

   1 more example

   Lillian walked the halls wearing a shirt plastered with what she assured everyone was a memetic stun agent; it looked just like the kill agent gating access to the SCP-001 database file, but as she patiently explained to McInnis, in art, context is everything.

   2024 September 28, HarryBlank, “Not Ready for Prime Time”, in SCP Foundation, archived from the original on 02 Oct 2024

plural gates

1. Northern EnglandScotlandA way, path.

   "Stand out o' my gate, wife, for, d'ye see, I am rather in a haste, Jean Linton."

   1828, James Hogg, Mary Burnet

   1 more example

   I was going to be an honest man; but the devil has this very day flung first a lawyer, and then a woman, in my gate.

   1818 July 25, Jedediah Cleishbotham [pseudonym; Walter Scott], Tales of My Landlord, Second Series, […] (The Heart of Mid-Lothian), volume (please specify |volume=I to IV), Edinburgh: […] [James Ballantyne and Co.] for Archibald Constable and Company, →OCLC

2. obsoleteA journey.

   […] nought regarding, they kept on their gate, / And all her vaine allurements did forsake […]

   1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book II, Canto XII”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC

3. Northern EnglandScotlandA street; now used especially as a combining form to make the name of a street e.g. "Briggate" (a common street name in the north of England meaning "Bridge Street") or "Kirkgate" meaning "Church Street".
4. ScotlandUKarchaicdialectalManner; gait.

1. A ghost town in Scott County, Arkansas, United States.
2. A tiny town in Beaver County, Oklahoma, United States.
3. An unincorporated community in Thurston County, Washington, United States.

1. abbreviationacronymuncountableeducationgifted and talented education