enate

English

Etymology

From Latin ēnātus.

Noun

enate (plural enates)

1. A relative whose relation is traced only through female members of the family.

   A great-grandmother is an enate if she is your mother’s mother's mother.

   • 2000, Alexander H. Bolyanatz, Mortuary Feasting on New Ireland: The Activation of Matriliny Among the Sursurunga, page 86:

     Similarly, since the wearing of a sawat is importantly informed by matrilineal group membership — an enate of the deceased cannot wear a sawat — it would be an error to assume that matrilineal group membership is necessarily salient in explaining the behavior of a social actor.

2. Any maternal female relative.

Antonyms

• agnate

Adjective

enate (comparative more enate, superlative most enate)

1. Related to someone by female connections.
2. Related on the maternal side of the family.
3. (linguistics) Having identical grammatical structure (but with elements that are semantically different).
4. Growing out.

Synonyms

• enatic

Coordinate terms

• agnate (also linguistics)
• cognate

Translations

related by female connections

• Finnish: naislinjainen

related on the maternal side

• Finnish: äidinpuoleinen

Anagrams

• atene, eaten

Latin

Participle

ēnāte

1. vocative masculine singular of ēnātus