tea

plural teas · alternative dialectal obsolete tay

1. uncountableThe tea plant (Camellia sinensis); (countable) a variety of this plant.

   Darjeeling tea is grown in India.

2. uncountableThe dried leaves or buds of the tea plant; (countable) a variety of such leaves.

   Not for all the tea in China.

   1 more example

   Go to the supermarket and buy some Darjeeling tea.

3. uncountableThe drink made by infusing these dried leaves or buds in hot water.

   Would you like some tea?

   2 more examples

   She is drinking her tea right now.

   Mother[…]considered that the exclusiveness of Peter's circle was due not to its distinction, but to the fact that it was an inner Babylon of prodigality and whoredom, from which every Kensingtonian held aloof, except on the conventional tip-and-run excursions in pursuit of shopping, tea and theatres.

   1921, Ben Travers, chapter 2, in A Cuckoo in the Nest, Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, Page & Company, published 1925, →OCLC

4. Southern UScountableuncountableSpecifically sweet tea, an iced tea supersaturated with sugar.
5. countableuncountableAny drink which is similar to Camellia sinensis tea in some way

   Mushroom Tea / 8 cups water / 1 cup dried reishi mushroom pieces [...] 1. Start by making Reishi Mushroom Tea: Bring water to a boil in a medium saucepan. 2. Add the reishi mushroom pieces[…]

   2019 February 12, Maryea Flaherty, Anti-Inflammatory Drinks for Health: 100 Smoothies, Shots, Teas, Broths, and Seltzers to Help Prevent Disease, Lose Weight, Increase Energy, Look Radiant, Reduce Pain, and More!, Simon and Schuster, →ISBN, page 141

6. Any drink which is similar to Camellia sinensis tea in some way:
   1. uncountableAny similar drink made by infusing parts of various other plants.

      camomile tea; mint tea

      2 more examples

      The healer told us to collect a certain plant and make a tea of it.

      Curcuma tea relieves colds[…]

      2017 January 3, Gilles Diederichs, My Anti-Stress Year: 52 Weeks of Soothing Activities and Wellness Advice, Simon and Schuster, →ISBN

      Synonyms: herbal tea, herb tea, tisane

   2. in compoundsuncountableMeat stock served as a hot drink.

      beef tea

7. CommonwealthNorthern UScountableA cup of any of these drinks, often with milk, sugar, lemon, or tapioca pearls.

   We'd like one tea and one coffee, please.

8. Southern UScountableuncountableEast AsiaA glass of these drinks.
9. UKuncountableA light midafternoon meal, typically but not necessarily including tea.

   I won't make it to the breakfast event, but I'll see you at the tea.

   2 more examples

   But the gorge of the Rush was not at all a nice place for travelling either. I mean, it was not a nice place for people in a hurry. For an afternoon's ramble ending in a picnic tea it would have been delightful.

   1951, C. S. Lewis, Prince Caspian: The Return to Narnia

   Tea was a very special institution, revolving as it did around the ceremony and worship of Toast. In a place [public schools] where alcohol, tobacco and drugs were forbidden, it was essential that something should take their place as a powerful and public totem of virility and cool. Toast, for reasons lost in time, was the substance chosen.

   1991 September, Stephen Fry, chapter 1, in The Liar, London: Heinemann, →ISBN, section I, page 16

   Synonyms: afternoon tea & Thesaurus:meal

10. CommonwealthIrelanduncountableSynonym of supper, the main evening meal, whether or not it includes the drink tea.

    The family were sitting round the table, eating their tea.

    2 more examples

    Breakfast was composed of a meal which reminded me of a linseed poultice; for dinner there were potatoes boiled in their jackets with beef saltier than the ocean itself. [...] Tea was something like breakfast.

    1933, Frank Clune, Try Anything Once, Sydney: Angus and Robertson, page 38

    Jacki set about making the tea—bacon grills with chips and bread and butter.

    2018, Ray Wyre, Tim Tate, The Murder of Childhood, page 126

    Synonyms: supper

11. countableuncountableball gamesThe break in play between the second and third sessions.

    Australia were 490 for 7 at tea on the second day.

    1 more example

    As recently as the mid-80s the players would be given a bottle of beer at lunchtime at some county grounds, and "tea" still meant a cup of tea into the 90s.

    2009, “What do cricketers eat at tea? When is it safe to flush on the train? What's a plujit?”, Notes and queries: Life and style, in The Guardian

12. countabledatedslanguncountableSynonym of marijuana.

    Here in Texas possession of tea is a felony calling for 2 years.

    1947 March 11, William Burroughs, letter

    4 more examples

    So they were evidence. Evidence of what? That a man occasionally smoked a stick of tea, a man who looked as if any touch of the exotic would appeal to him. On the other hand lots of tough guys smoked marijuana […].

    1940, Raymond Chandler, Farewell, My Lovely, Penguin, published 2010, page 103

    Tea puts a musician in a real masterly sphere, and that's why so many jazzmen have used it.

    1946, Milton “Mezz” Mezzrow, Bernard Wolfe, “Them First Kicks are a Killer”, in Really the Blues, New York, N.Y.: Random House, book 2 (1923–1928: Chicago, Chicago), page 74

    Jive music and tea were the two most important components of the hipster's life.

    1948 June, Anatole Broyard, “A Portrait of the Hipster”, in Partisan Review

    Seeing that we didn’t know anything about ourselves, he whipped out three sticks of tea and said to go ahead, supper’d be ready soon.

    1957 September 5, Jack Kerouac, On the Road, New York, N.Y.: Viking Press, →OCLC

    Synonyms: marijuana

13. countableslanguncountableespecially gay slang and African-American VernacularInformation, especially gossip.

    Spill the tea on that drama, hon.

    3 more examples

    Now I've told you that I've taken LSD, and you think I'm gonna leap through a window or something like that. And you know why that is, that's because of Art Linkletter's daughter.... But let me give you the tea on her, see, she took LSD, realized she was Art Linkletter's daughter, and threw herself out of the window!

    1992, Lea DeLaria, “Ms. DeLaria's Dating Tips for Dykes”, in Bulldyke in a China Shop (spoken-word comedy album)

    "What's the tea on you and China? Where she at Alicia? You should know where ya baby at."

    2015, Sonya Shuman, Doors of the Church Are Open: Smoke & Mirrors by Sonya Shuman

    For those looking for tea on someone, one of the first places you should look is their Venmo account. ... Though most people have found out how to make all of their transactions private, preventing snooping eyes from seeing how many times they've gone out for brunch in the last month, JD Vance hasn't seemed to figure that out yet.

    2024 July 23, Sara Belcher, “JD Vance's Public Venmo Will Make You Want to Private Yours”, in Distractify

present singular third person teas · participle present teaing · participle past teaed · past teaed · participle past tea'd · past tea'd · participle past tead · past tead · alternative dialectal obsolete tay

1. intransitiveTo drink tea.

   We tea’d with May, and had to wait over an hour for a taxi!

   1916 March 28, Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother, “Elizabeth”, in William Shawcross, editor, Counting One’s Blessings: The Selected Letters of Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother, New York, N.Y.: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, published 2012, page 32

   2 more examples

   I dined yesterday at | three on mutton chops and 1/2 pint of E[ast] I [ndian] sherry, and then tead and muffined' at 8.

   1837, Benjamin Disraeli, Benjamin Disraeli Letters: 1835-1837, Toronto; Buffalo; London: University of Toronto Press, published 1982, →ISBN, page 319

   We coffeed and tead and smoked a trench torch with Grand Master Browning, and cranked our Cadillac for another station.

   1921, Desmos of Delta Sigma Delta, page 41

2. intransitiveTo take afternoon tea (a light meal).

   The wind was high and the hills ditto, and both being against us we were late in reaching Hitchin (30 from Cambridge), so giving up the idea of reaching Oxford we toiled on through Luton, on to Dunstable (47), where we teaed moderately […]

   1877, The Bicycling Times and Tourist's Gazette, page 38

3. transitiveTo give tea to.

   After I’d tea’d everyone and Oz had breakfasted them,[…]

   2019, Jordaina Sydney Robinson, Dead Completely (Afterlife Adventures Series)

   4 more examples

   And they’ve got Professor Hummums with ’em, the great Everlasting Star of the Nineteenth Century, which he has breakfasted and dined and tea’d and supped here ever since yesterday.

   1858, Benedict Cruiser, “Of the Agonising Process by which that which was once a Bower of Bliss was converted into a Cave of Despair”, in George Augustus Sala, editor, How I Tamed Mrs. Cruiser, London: James Blackwood, page 129

   In half an hour they had all been tea’d and coffeed and refreshed by the nurses, and shortly after were all undressed and put to bed clean and comfortable, and in a droll state of grateful wonder;

   1863, chapter I, in Hospital Transports. A Memoir of the Embarkation of the Sick and Wounded from the Peninsula of Virginia in the Summer of 1862., Boston, Mass.: Ticknor and Fields, page 25

   But one or two evil-disposed characters muttered they might be sure the lady had her own turn to serve, and they might be sure they wasn't "teaed and muffined and sandwiched for nothing!"

   1866, Emma Jane Worboise, “The St. Beetha’s Temperance Society”, in St. Beetha’s; or, The Heiress of Arne, London: “Christian World” Office, […]; Jackson, Walford, and Hodder, […], →OCLC, page 213

   This gentleman was presented by Colonel C. E. S. Wood, and was entertained here—wined, dined, tead, breakfasted, coffeed and luncheoned—and we bought his pictures.

   1909, The Public, page 109

comparative more tea · superlative most tea · alternative dialectal obsolete tay

1. slangGood-looking, sexy.

plural teas

1. A moment, a historical unit of time from China, about the amount of time needed to quickly drink a traditional cup of tea.

1. A city in South Dakota.

plural TEAs

1. Northern IrelandabbreviationcountableinitialismInitialism of training and employment agency.
2. abbreviationacronymuncountablechemistryAcronym of triethylaluminium.
3. abbreviationuncountablechemistryAbbreviation of triethylamine.
4. abbreviationuncountablechemistryAbbreviation of triethanolamine.

1. USabbreviationacronymnot comparablegovernmentAcronym of taxed enough already.

1. abbreviationacronymcomputingAcronym of The Elm Architecture.
2. abbreviationacronymcomputerAcronym of Tiny Encryption Algorithm.
3. TexasabbreviationacronymeducationAcronym of Texas Education Agency.

   Hinojosa presented state budget data going back to 2016 that she said shows TEA has grown by about 50% over the last decade under Gov. Greg Abbott, while the percentage of students who pass the state’s assessment tests has declined.

   2025 March 28, Brant Bigamon, “DOGEing the Texas Education Agency”, in The Austin Chronicle