What does ate mean?
"Ate" is the simple past tense of the verb "eat," describing the act of consuming food by putting it in the mouth, chewing, and swallowing it at some point in the past. It covers everything from a hurried snack to a formal feast, making it one of the most frequently used verbs in everyday English: people ate breakfast, ate dinner with friends, or ate their fill at a celebration. The word is entirely regular in its behavior despite being an irregular verb overall — it never takes an -ed ending, and it must be distinguished from "eaten," which serves as the past participle in perfect constructions such as "she has eaten." Pronounced /eɪt/ and rhyming with "late" and "eight," it is sometimes confused in writing with the numeral "eight." "Ate" descends from Old English "æt," the past tense of "etan," and belongs to an ancient Indo-European family that also gave English words like "edible" and "obese."
verbPast tense of "eat": to have put food in the mouth, chewed, and swallowed it.
- To have consumed food by putting it in the mouth, chewing, and swallowing it (past tense of eat).
"She ate breakfast quickly before heading out the door."
"We ate dinner on the terrace as the sun went down."
"The children ate every last cookie before anyone noticed."
One tiny three-letter word connects your lunch to words like "edible" and "obese" — they all trace back to the same ancient root meaning "to eat."
Reviewed by Deb Chak, Editor. AI-assisted content curated by RJS Tech Solutions LLP.
Etymology of ate
"Ate" comes from the Old English "æt," the past-tense form of "etan" (to eat), which traces back through Proto-Germanic to the ancient Indo-European root *ed-, meaning "to eat or bite." That same root produced Latin "edere," giving English "edible" and "comestible" among others, and also underlies "obese." Cognates appear across the Germanic languages, such as German "aß" (ate). The spelling stabilized as "ate" during the Middle English period as vowel pronunciation shifted.
Word family
Usage notes
"Ate" is pronounced /eɪt/, rhyming with "late," and never takes an -n ending — that form is the separate past participle "eaten." It is neutral register and used identically in British and American English.
Don't confuse with
"Ate" is the past tense of the verb eat, while "eight" is the number 8.