'Mate': Where Did It Come From And What Does It Mean?

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Got itNormal text sizeLarger text sizeVery large text sizeWe are social creatures with our own special quirks and habits. Explainers unpack the rules we live by (and sometimes break).See all 25 stories.

It’s such a little word. Mate. Small, but with long Australian legs, having survived and thrived through the convict era, the gold rushes, two world wars and the first two decades of the 21st century. Mate can mean many things in Australia, from the tenderest greeting to the whiplash of condemnation.

It can radiate great goodwill or the oiliest insincerity. It depends on the intonation, the circumstances of its delivery and who is saying it to – or about – whom.

Academics have expended much time and energy grappling with the word. A prime minister caused a national convulsion when he tried and failed to co-opt mate’s conceptually broader companion, mateship, for a preamble to the Constitution.

The Australian National Dictionary offers long explanations for no less than four forms of common usage of the word. At least one substantial book has been published exclusively about it.

Mate has functional uses too: it is employed vigorously to fill lapses in remembering names when acquaintances meet. It has long been accused of excluding women from its embrace, yet it was adopted by some bold first-wave feminists and, in some modern settings has become at least somewhat gender-neutral.

It crosses social and political barriers without drawing breath, and may fall as easily from the lips of a person on the street as those of a rich and powerful industrialist; from a prime minister to a blue-collar labourer, and many of those between.

So where did this little word come from? How has it managed to last and become so ubiquitous? And do Australians use it differently from everyone else?

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