agate

From Middle French agathe, from Latin achatēs, from Ancient Greek ἀχάτης (akhátēs, “agate”).

• IPA^(key): /ˈæɡ.ɪt/
• (weak vowel merger) IPA^(key): /ˈæɡ.ət/

  • Audio (Southern England):

    (file)

• Rhymes: -æɡɪt

agate (countable and uncountable, plural agates)

1. (countable, uncountable, mineralogy) A semitransparent, uncrystallized silicate mineral and semiprecious stone, presenting various tints in the same specimen, with colors delicately arranged and often curved in parallel alternating dark and light stripes or bands, or blended in clouds; various authorities call it a variety of chalcedony, a variety of quartz, or a combination of the two.
   • 1831, L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], chapter I, in Romance and Reality. […], volume III, London: Henry Colburn and Richard Bentley, […], →OCLC, page 9:

     The ends of the veil, drawn over her head, were embroidered with silver; she had long gold ear-rings; to a rich and large gold chain was suspended a cross set with precious stones; and over the arm of her chair hung a rosary of agate beads.

   • 1947, Malcolm Lowry, Under the Volcano, New York: Reynal & Hitchcock, page 86:

     Yes: living among the cohabations^[sic] of Faust himself, among the litharge and agate and hyacinth and pearls.

2. (uncountable, US printing, dated) The size of type between pearl and nonpareil, standardized as 5+¹⁄₂-point.
3. (countable, typography) One fourteenth of an inch.
4. (countable, obsolete) A diminutive person; so called in allusion to the small figures cut in agate for rings and seals.
5. (countable) A tool used by gold-wire drawers, bookbinders, etc.;—so called from the agate fixed in it for burnishing.
6. (countable) A marble made from agate.
7. (slang, usually in the plural) A testicle.

• (type size): (UK) ruby
• (marble): aggie

• silica (any mineral of the silica group)

• (mineralogy): fortification agate, Scotch pebble; moss agate, clouded agate

• aggie

From Late Middle English agate, a gate. Equivalent to a- (“on”) +‎ gate (“way, path”).

• (US) IPA^(key): /əˈɡeɪt/

  • Audio (Southern England):

    (file)

agate (not comparable)

1. (obsolete) On the way; agoing.
   • 1554, Interlude of Youth:

     Go to it then hardily, and let us be agate.

   • 1847 October 16, Currer Bell [pseudonym; Charlotte Brontë], Jane Eyre. An Autobiography. […], volume (please specify |volume=I to III), London: Smith, Elder, and Co., […], →OCLC:

     I'm fear'd you have some ill plans agate.

From Proto-Basque *anate, from Latin anatem (“duck”).

• IPA^(key): /aɡate/ [a.ɣ̞a.t̪e]
• Rhymes: -ate, -e
• Hyphenation: a‧ga‧te

agate inan

1. (Biscayan) alternative form of ahate

agate

1. present adverbial passive participle of agi

(This etymology is missing or incomplete. Please add to it, or discuss it at the Etymology scriptorium.)

• IPA^(key): /a.ɡat/

• Audio (France (Brétigny-sur-Orge)):

  (file)

agate f (plural agates)

1. agate

• “agate”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012

agate

1. adverbial present passive participle of agar

agate f

1. plural of agata

• Gaeta

Borrowed from Spanish ágata, from Old French agathe, from Latin achates, from Ancient Greek ἀχάτης (akhátēs).

• IPA^(key): /ǎɣáte/

ǎgáte

1. agate

• Hernández Cruz, Luis; Victoria Torquemada, Moisés (2010), Diccionario del hñähñu (otomí) del Valle del Mezquital, estado de Hidalgo (Serie de vocabularios y diccionarios indígenas “Mariano Silva y Aceves”; 45)‎^[1] (in Spanish), second edition, Instituto Lingüístico de Verano, A.C., page 3

From a (“on”) +‎ gate (“way, path”).

• IPA^(key): /aˈɡaːt(ə)/

agate (Late Middle English, rare)

1. straight away, immediately
2. on the way, while travelling

• English: agate
• Middle Scots: agait, agate
  • Scots: agate, agait

• “agāte, adv..”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007.

• agait

Inherited from Middle Scots agate, agait, from Middle English agate; equivalent to a- (“on”) +‎ gate

agate (not comparable)

1. On the road, afoot, going about
2. away

• “agate, adv.”, in The Dictionary of the Scots Language, Edinburgh: Scottish Language Dictionaries, 2004–present, →OCLC.