What does "meat" mean?

1. (animal flesh for food) the flesh of an animal that people eat. 2. (the core or substance) the most important or interesting part of something, like a story or an idea. 3. (part of a fruit or nut) the thick, solid part of a fruit or nut that you can eat. 4. (sweet spot of a bat) the best part of a bat or club to hit a ball with. 5. (penis) a very informal and sometimes rude word for a penis. 6. (food in general) an old word for any kind of solid food.

meat — meaning, definition & examples

Word

01animal flesh for food

A1 · Beginner Uncountable noun

n. the flesh of an animal that people eat.

n. the flesh of an animal, typically muscle tissue, consumed as food. Uncountable in its general sense.

“We decided to stop eating meat and became vegetarians last year.”

“The chef insisted on sourcing organic meat from local farms to ensure the highest quality for the restaurant's signature dishes.”

Synonyms

flesh

02the core or substance

B2 · Upper Intermediate Uncountable noun Informal

n. the most important or interesting part of something, like a story or an idea.

n. the most substantial or essential part of an idea, argument, or piece of writing.

“The first few pages were boring, but then I got to the meat of the story.”

“After twenty minutes of polite introductions, the negotiators finally reached the meat of the contract regarding intellectual property rights.”

Synonyms

substancepithcore

Antonyms

surface trivia

03part of a fruit or nut

B2 · Upper Intermediate Uncountable noun

n. the thick, solid part of a fruit or nut that you can eat.

n. the edible, fleshy part of a fruit, nut, or seed, as distinguished from the shell or skin.

“It took a long time to crack the coconut and get to the white meat inside.”

“The recipe requires you to scoop out the meat of the avocado and mash it with lime juice and salt.”

Synonyms

flesh pulp

Antonyms

shell skin

04sweet spot of a bat

C1 · Advanced Uncountable noun Sports Informal

n. the best part of a bat or club to hit a ball with.

n. the sweet spot or most effective hitting area of a sports implement such as a cricket bat or baseball bat.

“He hit the ball right on the meat of the bat and it flew over the fence.”

“The batsman timed the delivery perfectly, catching it on the meat of the blade to send the ball racing toward the boundary.”

Synonyms

sweet spot

05penis

C2 · Proficiency Uncountable noun Slang · Vulgar

n. a very informal and sometimes rude word for a penis.

n. a slang term for the penis. Often carries a vulgar or highly informal connotation.

“The teenagers were making crude jokes about meat in the locker room.”

“The script was criticized for its reliance on low-brow humor and frequent references to 'meat' that many viewers found offensive.”

Synonyms

phallus

06food in general

C2 · Proficiency Uncountable noun Archaic · Dialect

n. an old word for any kind of solid food.

n. solid food in general, as distinguished from drink. Now largely restricted to fixed idioms or specific dialects.

“In the old story, the traveler asked the innkeeper for some meat and drink.”

“The archaic usage of 'meat' to describe any solid nourishment is still evident in certain rural dialects and seventeenth-century literature.”

Usage

Commonly survives in the proverb 'one man's meat is another man's poison'.

Synonyms

sustenance fare

From Middle English mete, from Old English mete (“food”), from Proto-West Germanic mati, from Proto-Germanic matiz (“food”), from Proto-Indo-European *meh₂d- (“to drip, ooze; grease, fat”). Cognates Cognate with North Frisian Miit (“meat”), Danish mad (“food”), Faroese and Icelandic matur (“food, meal”), Norn mader (“food”), Norwegian Bokmål, Norwegian Nynorsk, and Swedish mat (“food”), Gothic 𐌼𐌰𐍄𐍃 (mats, “food”). A -ja- derivation from the same base is found in Middle Dutch and Middle Low German met (“lean pork”), from which Dutch met (“minced pork”) and German Mett (“minced meat”) derive, respectively. Compare also Old Irish mess (“animal feed”) and Welsh mes (“acorns”), English mast (“fodder for swine and other animals”), which are probably from the same root.

Etymology adapted from Wiktionary, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.

NOUN

meat(A1)

ADJECTIVE