Mater
From Latinmāter(“mother”), partly via late-Middle Englishmatere.
Britain slang, now chiefly archaic or humorous for Mother example ‘the mater has kept on the house in London’
Matter
In the classical physics observed in everyday life, matter is any substance that has mass and takes up space by having volume. This includes atoms and anything made up of these, but not other energy phenomena or waves such as light or sound. More generally, however, in modern physics, matter is not a fundamental concept because a universal definition of it is elusive; for example, the elementary constituents of atoms may be point particles, each having no volume individually.
All the everyday objects that we can bump into, touch or squeeze are ultimately composed of atoms. This ordinary atomic matter is in turn made up of interacting subatomic particles—usually a nucleus of protons and neutrons, and a cloud of orbiting electrons. Typically, science considers these composite particles matter because they have both rest mass and volume. By contrast, massless particles, such as photons, are not considered matter, because they have neither rest mass nor volume. However, not all particles with rest mass have a classical volume, since fundamental particles such as quarks and leptons (sometimes equated with matter) are considered “point particles” with no effective size or volume. Nevertheless, quarks and leptons together make up “ordinary matter”, and their interactions contribute to the effective volume of the composite particles that make up ordinary matter.
Matter exists in states (or phases): the classical solid, liquid, and gas; as well as the more exotic plasma, Bose–Einstein condensates, fermionic condensates, and quark–gluon plasma.
For much of the history of the natural sciences people have contemplated the exact nature of matter. The idea that matter was built of discrete building blocks, the so-called particulate theory of matter, was first put forward by the Greek philosophers Leucippus (~490 BC) and Democritus (~470–380 BC).
Mater (noun)
Mother.
Mater (noun)
Either of the dura mater and pia mater of the brain.
Mater (noun)
Someone or something that mates.
Matter (noun)
Substance, material.
Matter (noun)
The basic structural component of the universe. Matter usually has mass and volume.
Matter (noun)
Matter made up of normal particles, not antiparticles. (Non-antimatter matter).
Matter (noun)
A kind of substance.
“vegetable matter”
Matter (noun)
Written material (especially in books or magazines).
“printed matter;”
“He always took some reading matter with him on the plane.”
Matter (noun)
A condition, subject or affair, especially one of concern.
“What’s the matter?;”
“state matters”
Matter (noun)
An approximate amount or extent.
“I stayed for a matter of months.”
Matter (noun)
The essence; the pith; the embodiment.
Matter (noun)
Inducing cause or reason, especially of anything disagreeable or distressing.
Matter (noun)
Pus.
Matter (verb)
To be important.
“The only thing that matters to Jim is being rich.”
“Sorry for pouring ketchup on your clean white shirt! – Oh, don’t worry, it does not matter.”
Matter (verb)
To care about, to mind; to find important.
Matter (verb)
To form pus or matter, as an abscess; to maturate.
Mater (noun)
mother
“the mater has kept on the house in London”
Matter (noun)
physical substance in general, as distinct from mind and spirit; (in physics) that which occupies space and possesses rest mass, especially as distinct from energy
“the structure and properties of matter”
Matter (noun)
a particular substance
“faecal matter”
“organic matter”
Matter (noun)
written or printed material
“reading matter”
Matter (noun)
a subject or situation under consideration
“financial matters”
“a great deal of work was done on this matter”
Matter (noun)
something which is to be tried or proved in court; a case.
Matter (noun)
the present state of affairs
“we can do nothing to change matters”
Matter (noun)
the reason for distress or a problem
“what’s the matter?”
Matter (noun)
the substance or content of a text as distinct from its style or form.
Matter (noun)
the body of a printed work, as distinct from titles, headings, etc.
Matter (noun)
the particular content of a proposition, as distinct from its form.
Matter (verb)
be important or significant
“it doesn’t matter what the guests wear”
“what did it matter to them?”
Matter (verb)
(of a person) be important or influential
“she was trying to get known by the people who matter”
Matter (verb)
(of a wound) secrete or discharge pus.