- UKSociable or friendly.
“You've been very matey with that new bird.”
“She asked in what sort of accident I had broken my back, and when I told her that I had been shot down she became much more matey.”
“We decided that it would be more matey to have communal meals, so all the guests and hosts foregathered at the hotel for lunches and dinners, and at every sitting there were about 40 of us, all in hig”
- diminutive, form-of, informalDiminutive of mate, friend.
“Hello, matey, just back from the pub?”
““No, no, matey, I means no harm. Ye see, I think I done ye a bad turn onst, an′ I′m minded t′ do ye right afore I goes off. You bring a writer here, matey, an′ I′ll tell ye what.””
“1920, Francis Stevens (Gertrude Barrows Bennett), Claimed, 2009, Munsey′s, page 49,
And take my advice, matey. When yer buys it, don′t yer make Lutz′s mistake and think yer can wriggle out easy.”
- slangA fellow sailor; often used affectedly, especially when portraying a pirate.
“Ahoy mateys, scrub the deck!”
“c. 1906, Herbert Strang (pseudonym), In Clive′s Command, 2006, Echo Library, page 35,
“Well, we are and we en′t, eh, mateys? The Waterman′s Rest en′t exactly the kind of place to spend shore leave; it”
““Well, Mateys,” he said, “heave to. Rum for all.”
The pirates grabbed their bottles, and as they drank they began to sing and laugh and shout at each other.”
- slangA dockyard worker.
“He got the dockyard 'mateys' to install a primitive form of steam heating which he had seen in Navy ships […]”
“Mediterranean peoples are thought to be excitable, but the Maltese stood up to the blitz with great aplomb, especially the dghaisa men who plowed back and forth across the harbours regardless of the r”
- A surname from the Slavic languages.
Formsmatier(comparative) · matiest(superlative) · mateys(plural) · Mateys(plural)