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pate

Archaic Terms
Pronunciation

Understanding ARPABET Pronunciation

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The pronunciation guide uses the ARPABET phonetic system—the same system used in speech recognition and text-to-speech applications.

Vowel Examples:
AE1 = cat, bat
EH1 = bed, head
IY1 = see, me
OW1 = go, boat
UW1 = boot, do
Stress Numbers:
0 = no stress (unstressed)
1 = primary stress (loud)
2 = secondary stress (medium)
Example:
AH0 TH IY1 N AH0
= a-THEE-na (Athena)

The stressed syllable (marked with 1) is pronounced louder and clearer than others.

Quick Definition

The top of the head or skull; often used humorously, contemptuously, or affectionately to refer to someone's head, as in "his bald pate" or "a wise pate."

Detailed Definition
“Pate” connotes the head as seat of folly or fragility. In poetry, it appears in insults (“empty pate”) or memento mori. The term’s bluntness suits comic or moralizing tone. Poets use it to explore intellect’s limits or mortality’s certainty, where pates are cracked by time or wit, reinforcing themes of vanity, wisdom, and corporeal decay.
Example
Example in poetry:
“He scratched his pate in deep thought,” in a comic scholar portrait; In Shakespeare’s Hamlet: “Adders fang’d... / Would not have been so dull and muddy-mettled... / But break, my pate, with thinking!”; “The fool’s pate held more sense than the king’s crown”; “His pate was bald, but his mind full”; “She tapped his pate and said, ‘Wake up!’”; The poet’s pate bore the marks of midnight oil.
Additional Notes
“Pate” humorously or contemptuously refers to the head; in comic or satirical verse, “empty pate” mocks foolishness, using bodily metonymy to reduce intellect to physical container.
Also Known As
head skull brain
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