gate

A doorlike structure outside a house.

Noun

  1. A doorlike structure outside a house.
  2. A doorway, opening, or passage in a fence or wall.
    • At 7, he made his exit through the Ch‘ien-ch‘ing and the Lung-tsung gates, and thence, through the Yung-Hang Gate he entered the Tz‘u-ning Palace. - 1870 June [1870 April], “The Peking Gazettes”, in Chinese Recorder and...

    Synonyms: doorway entrance passage

  3. A movable barrier.
    • The gate in front of the railroad crossing went up after the train had passed.
  4. A passageway (as in an air terminal) where passengers can embark or disembark.
  5. A location which serves as a conduit for transport, migration, or trade.
    • Lyons and Fisher's stations, who have spared nothing to ensure a success on this point, there is every reason to believe that the Northern Territory will soon be able to make a proper use of her geographical position,...
  6. The amount of money made by selling tickets to a concert or a sports event.
  7. A logical pathway made up of switches which turn on or off. Examples are and, or, nand, etc.

    Synonyms: logic gate

  8. The controlling terminal of a field effect transistor (FET).
  9. In a lock tumbler, the opening for the stump of the bolt to pass through or into.
  10. The channel or opening through which metal is poured into the mould; the ingate; tedge.
  11. The waste piece of metal cast in the opening; a sprue or sullage piece. Also written geat and git.
  12. The gap between a batsman's bat and pad.
    • Singh was bowled through the gate, a very disappointing way for a world-class batsman to get out.

Origin

From Middle English gate (the forms ȝate and ȝeat yielded the dialectal doublet yate), from the plural of Old English ġeat (specifically gatu), from Proto-West Germanic *gat, from Proto-Germanic *gatą (“hole, opening”). See also Old Norse gat, Swedish and Dutch gat, Low German Gaat, Gööt.

Forms

gates yate

Derived

A20 gate Abbey Gate agate age gate Aldgate algate Ambergate AND gate arrival gate Ashton Gate baby gate backgate back gate Baldwin's Gate beartrap gate beast-gate Bishopsgate Blackmoor Gate boarding gate Bogan Gate boom gate bridle gate Broughams Gate Burragate

Noun Northern England, Scotland

  1. A way, path.
    • I was going to be an honest man; but the devil has this very day flung first a lawyer, and then a woman, in my gate. - 1818 July 25, Jedediah Cleishbotham [pseudonym; Walter Scott], Tales of My Landlord, Second Series,...
    • "Stand out o' my gate, wife, for, d'ye see, I am rather in a haste, Jean Linton." - 1828, James Hogg, Mary Burnet:
  2. A journey.
    • […] nought regarding, they kept on their gate, / And all her vaine allurements did forsake […] - 1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book II, Canto XII”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie,...
  3. A street; now used especially as a combining form to make the name of a street e.g. "Briggate" (a common street name in the north of England meaning "Bridge Street") or Kirkgate meaning "Church Street".
  4. Manner; gait.

Origin

Borrowed from Old Norse gata, from Proto-Germanic *gatwǭ. Cognate with Danish gade, Swedish gata, German Gasse (“lane”). Doublet of gait.

Forms

gates

Verb

  1. To keep something inside by means of a closed gate.
  2. To punish (a student) by not allowing to leave the college grounds.
    • You climbed the wall, for which you ought to be gated; and finally, you came in blotto, for which you ought to be sent down. - 1935, Dorothy L. Sayers, Gaudy Night:
    • “I’ve missed two lectures already,” remarked Maurice, who was breakfasting in his pyjamas. “Cut them all — he’ll only gate you.” - 1971, E. M. Forster, chapter 13, in Maurice, Penguin, published 1972, page 72:
    • Dons could ring the front bell and be admitted after that hour. But students who returned after midnight or who stayed out all night were fined heavily or “gated” – that is, forbidden to leave college for several days....

    Synonyms: ground

  3. To open (a closed ion channel).
  4. To furnish with a gate.
  5. To turn (an image intensifier) on and off selectively, as needed or to avoid damage from excessive light exposure. See autogating.
  6. To selectively regulate or restrict (access to something).
    • Lillian walked the halls wearing a shirt plastered with what she assured everyone was a memetic stun agent; it looked just like the kill agent gating access to the SCP-001 database file, but as she patiently explained...

Forms

gates gating gated yate

Derived

gate off gater