cate
/keɪt
/noun (usually cates) archaic
A choice food; a delicacy.Petruccio's schooling of Kate on the proper consumption of household goods or ‘cates’ advances the central thesis of this book: that proper wives were created through proper management of proper goods....
- Those responsible for Kiss Me, Kate seem to have mistakenly based it on a line from The Comedy of Errors: ‘But though my cates be mean, take them in good part.’
- The further association between "cate" as culinary delicacy and as "cat" in need of taming is made by Petruchio later in the same scene.
Origin
Late Middle English (in the sense 'selling, a bargain'): from obsolete acate 'purchasing, things purchased', from Old French acat, achat, from acater, achater 'buy', based on Latin captare 'seize', from capere 'take'.