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Make Your Point > Archived Issues > SATE

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pronounce SATE:

SATE
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connect this word to others:

When I hear the word sate, I think of Templeton from Charlotte's Web sneaking onto the fairgrounds after dark, sating himself with "melon rinds and bits of hot dogs, cookie crumbs and rotten cotton candy, melted ice cream, mustard drippings, moldy goodies everywhere."

(Source)

He ends his song by belting out "That's where a rat can glut, glut, glut, glut!" In addition to glut, see if you can complete this list of sate's synonyms: fill, stuff, slake, satisfy, gratify, c__y ("fill with too much of a good thing"), and rep__te ("completely fill something").

If you're not sure about that last one, here's a hint: it's usually found in the phrase "rep__te with," as in "The shelves are rep__te with graphic novels."

(To reveal any word with blanks, give it a click.)   

definition:

"Sate" comes from an Old English word meaning "to be filled, or to be weary of something."

For centuries in English, we've used "sate" to mean "to fill, to satisfy, to totally gratify some desire or hunger," and that's still how we use the word today.

In other words, to sate people, or to sate their desires or hungers, is to fill them or satisfy them either completely or too much.

grammatical bits:

Part of speech:

Verb, the kind we most often use passively: "They were sated by the time the dessert tray came around;" "Their curiosity was sated."

Other forms: 

The other verb forms are "sated" and "sating."

If you need some adjectives, you can refer to people (and their desires and hungers) as sated, unsated, sateless, or unsatable. But instead of the rare word "unsatable," I'd suggest the more common "insatiable."

If you're wondering whether "satiate" is a form of "sate," they're actually different words, but with extremely close etymologies and meanings.

And if you're wondering if "satiety" is the noun for "sate," nope: those words have different histories. But the meaning is the same, so you can certainly refer to the feeling or state of being sated as "satiety."

how to use it:

Pick the stylish, formal, semi-common word "sate" when you want to emphasize how someone's hunger, curiosity, or other desire has been thoroughly satisfied or overly stuffed.

Say that someone is sated, or that someone's desire is sated: "At dinner, he was sated." "My sweet tooth can be sated only by Twizzlers." "In the library, his curiosity was sated."

You can also describe people being sated with certain things: "I was sated with mac and cheese." "We were sated with all the new gossip."

examples:

"He called for bread and meat until he was sated and threw the unfinished scraps to the dogs who slept by the fire that roared in his hearth." 
  — Jeff Zentner, The Serpent King, 2016

"I am irritated when... [a writer dishes] out too much of the story... All I want from a reviewer is a sense of the pace, rhythm, characterization and place, and how they are delivered. I want to be enticed by a review, not sated."
   — Anne Slater, letter to the editor, New York Times, 1 April 2022

has this page helped you understand "sate"?

   

Awesome, I'm glad it helped!

Thanks for letting me know!
If you have any questions about this term, please message me at Liesl@HiloTutor.com.


study it:

Explain the meaning of "sate" without saying "feed" or "satisfy."

try it out:

Check out this example from Salon:

"She made these Praline Cookies most every week because one of the senior partners, whose sweet tooth never seemed to be sated, could not get enough of them."

I'm not a fan of pralines, but I do have a taste for LifeSavers Gummies that can never be sated. Oof, they are SO good.

Talk about a craving of yours that never seems to be sated. What is it, specifically, that you can't get enough of? It might be a food, a drink, an activity, a type of book or movie, or even a place or a person.




before you review, play:

Try to spend 20 seconds or more on the game below. Don’t skip straight to the review—first, let your working memory empty out.

Our game for April: Word Choice Chuckles!

I'll give you a snippet of text that I spotted in the wild, with a word or phrase removed. See if you can fill one in that'll give the reader a chuckle. (Here are some examples.) Be cheesy. Be punny. Get in there and make me proud.

Try this one today:

"Eva Rodriguez has earned minimum wage at a Subway franchise for more than a decade. She has stocked ingredients, wiped down tables and served thousands of meals in the strip mall shop that is _____ between an optical store and a Mediterranean restaurant." 
 — Fast Company, 6 March 2025

Meaning of the missing word: "situated."

To see one possible answer, scroll all the way down.

review this word:

1. The opposite of SATE is

A. KEEP.
B. STARVE.
C. SPOTLIGHT.

2. From Kelly Barnhill's The Girl Who Drank the Moon: "She had a sated look about her, as if _____."

A. she was running a footrace across a grassy field
B. [her] light, motion, intelligence—had simply vanished
C. she had just eaten the most wonderful meal in the world and was now quite full




Answers to the review questions:
1. B
2. C

From the game:
"Eva Rodriguez has earned minimum wage at a Subway franchise for more than a decade. She has stocked ingredients, wiped down tables and served thousands of meals in the strip mall shop that is sandwiched between an optical store and a Mediterranean restaurant." 
 — Fast Company, 6 March 2025


a final word:


I hope you're enjoying Make Your Point. It's made with love.

I'm Liesl Johnson, a reading and writing tutor on a mission to explore, illuminate, and celebrate words.


From my blog:
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A disclaimer: When I write definitions, I use plain language and stick to the words' common, useful applications. If you're interested in authoritative and multiple definitions of words, I encourage you to check a dictionary. Also, because I'm American, I stick to American English when I share words' meanings, usage, and pronunciations; these elements sometimes vary across world Englishes.

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