Meaning

noun the officer below the master on a commercial ship

noun a fellow member of a team

noun the partner of an animal (especially a sexual partner)

originFrom Middle English mate, a borrowing from Middle Low German mate (“messmate”) (replacing Middle English mett, mette (“table companion, mate, partner”), from Old English ġemetta (“sharer of food, table-guest”)), from Old Saxon gimato, derived from Proto-Germanic *gamatjô, itself from *ga- (“together”) (related to German and Dutch ge-) + *matjô (from *matiz (“food”)), related to Old English mete…

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 3.0