Enate
Origin
From Latin Ä“nÄtus.
Full definition of enate
Noun
enate
(plural enates)- 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.
- Any maternal female relative.
Antonyms
Adjective
enate
- Related to someone by female connections.
- Related on the maternal side of the family.
- (linguistics) Having identical grammatical structure (but with elements that are semantically different).
- Growing out.
Coordinate terms
- agnate (also linguistics)