Noun
nates pl (plural only)
- (anatomy, medicine) The two anterior of the four lobes on the dorsal side of the midbrain of most mammals; the anterior optic lobes.
- The buttocks.
1963, Anthony Burgess, Inside Mr Enderby:Enderby watched her warily as she lay prone, having kicked the clothes off the bed, her nates silvered by the Roman moonlight to the likeness of a meringue.
1982, TC Boyle, Water Music, Penguin, published 2006, page 3:He sat cross-legged on a damask pillow and scrutinized the pale puckered nates with the air of an epicure examining a fly in his vichyssoise.
- (zoology) The umbones of a bivalve shell.
Etymology 1
From natis (“rump, buttocks”).
Etymology 2
Inflected form of natō (“swim, float”).
References
- “nates”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
- “nates”, in Charlton T. Lewis (1891) An Elementary Latin Dictionary, New York: Harper & Brothers
- nates in Charles du Fresne du Cange’s Glossarium Mediæ et Infimæ Latinitatis (augmented edition with additions by D. P. Carpenterius, Adelungius and others, edited by Léopold Favre, 1883–1887)
- nates in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire illustré latin-français, Hachette.