鋪在表面上的一片墊子
這一族就是核心畫面本身：一片平的東西鋪在某個表面上。差別只在鋪在哪裡、給誰用——地上、桌上，還是給身體躺的。
mat, floor mat · noun · C1
A small piece of thick, rough material that covers part of a floor.
地墊
這個拼法底下其實是2個不同的字，意思沒有關係， 只是長得一樣。下面分開列出來。跳到 mat, floor mat · mat, matte (adj)
1
mat
n核心畫面
You can think of it as a flat piece of woven stuff laid down on top of a surface — a layer that lies there, covering a patch of ground so that whatever touches it meets the mat instead of the floor.
一塊平平的、鋪在別的東西上面的墊子。它本身不厚重、不立體，重點是「平鋪」和「蓋住一小塊面」——腳踩上去、東西放上去，…更多收起
一塊平平的、鋪在別的東西上面的墊子。它本身不厚重、不立體，重點是「平鋪」和「蓋住一小塊面」——腳踩上去、東西放上去，先碰到的是這塊墊子，而不是底下的地板或桌面。這個字最早指用蘆葦、草莖編出來的席子，所以那個「編織成一片、攤開來鋪著」的感覺一直留在字裡：不管後來是浴室的地墊、桌上的杯墊還是瑜伽墊，畫面都還是同一個——一層平的東西，躺在另一個表面上。From the word’s history
From Late Latin matta, a mat made of rushes, borrowed into Old English as meatte — a woven strip of plant fibre laid on the floor. The modern core is still that: a flat woven layer put down over a surface.
這個字從晚期拉丁文 matta 來，意思就是「用燈心草編成的席子」，經古英語 meatte 進入英文。也就是說，它一開始指的就是實實在在的一塊編織草席，鋪在地上給人踩、給人坐。今天的 mat 材質換了（橡膠、塑膠、泡棉都有），但「一片平的、鋪著用的東西」這個畫面，從草席時代到現在沒有換過。
Wiktionary『mat』詞源條（Old English meatte ← Late Latin matta「燈心草編的席子」）
Three branches
糾結成一片的厚層
從「人鋪出來的一片席子」轉到「東西自己糾纏成的一片」：草席之所以是一片，是因為草莖交錯壓在一起；當頭髮、落葉、水草也這樣交錯壓成一層時，英文就直接叫它 mat。
mat, tangled mass · noun · C1
A thick mass of something such as hair, grass, or leaves, lying together in a layer.
厚層
只活在片語裡的用法
這一族接的不是地墊，而是摔角場上的那塊墊子——上了墊子就是真的要比到分出勝負。
go to the mat · noun · C1
If you go to the mat, you do everything you can to win an argument, solve a hard problem, or support someone.
拼到底
A second word, same spelling
2
mat
a核心畫面
You can think of it as a surface that swallows light instead of bouncing it back — you look at it and see no bright spot, no reflection, just an even, dull, soft-looking finish.
一個「不反光」的表面。光打上去沒有亮點、照不出影子，你看到的就是均勻、平平的一片顏色。跟旁邊亮晶晶的光面一比，它看起…更多收起
一個「不反光」的表面。光打上去沒有亮點、照不出影子，你看到的就是均勻、平平的一片顏色。跟旁邊亮晶晶的光面一比，它看起來乾乾的、柔柔的——照片沖成霧面、牆漆刷成霧面、口紅塗成霧面，講的都是同一件事：光線被吃掉了，不會彈回你眼睛裡。原始詞典資料21 筆記錄
以下是外部詞典記錄的用法，原文照列，我們還沒有寫成教學內容。上面的說明才是我們自己寫的；有些用法可能上面已經講過了。
Matname/mæt/
- 1
A diminutive of the male given name Matthew.
- 2
slura Malay man
matnoun詞源 1/mæt/
- 1
A flat piece of coarse material used for wiping one’s feet, or as a decorative or protective floor covering.
- Wipe your feet on the mat before coming in.
- 2
A small flat piece of material used to protect a surface from anything hot or rough; a coaster.
- They put mats on the table during mealtimes.
- 3
athleticshobbieslifestyleA floor pad to protect athletes.
- The high jumper cleared the bar and landed safely on the mat.
- 4
A thickly tangled mess.
- a mat of weeds
- But to return to where we left her, I see her still, propped up in a kind of stupor against one of the walls in which this wretched edifice abounds, her long grey greasy hair framing in its cowl of scrofulous mats a face where pallor, languor, hunger, acne, recent dirt, immemorial chagrin and surplus hair seemed to dispute the mastery.
- 5
A thin layer of woven, non-woven, or knitted fiber that serves as reinforcement to a material.
- 6
A thin surface layer; superficial cover.
- Iceland moss growing in a mat
- The fad for blaming all mass extinctions (such as happened at the end of the Cretaceous when the dinosaurs vanished) on impacts of objects from space was extended to the Pleistocene in 2007. That year a group of scientists proposed that the North American extinctions were due to a comet or meteorite impact over the Carolinas, near the beginning of the Younger Dryas event, about 12,900 years ago. The original evidence for this supposed impact was a "black mat" of organic material in many Clovis sites, plus microscopic nano-diamonds in deep-sea cores, and rare Platinum group metals in Greenland ice cores from around 12,900 years ago.
matverb詞源 1/mæt/
- 1
To cover, protect or decorate with mats.
- Be careful now to keep the Doors and Windows of your Conservatories well matted
- 2
To form a thick, tangled mess; to interweave into, or like, a mat; to entangle.
- And o'er his eyebrows hung his matted hair.
matnoun詞源 3
- 1
An alloy of copper, tin, iron, etc.; white metal.
matnoun詞源 7
- 1
Vulgar, obscene, or profane language in Russian and some other Slavic language communities.
- Most teenagers go through times when they use mat "rather heavily" among themselves. I guess they associate it with being adults. In most cases though this goes away pretty fast, usually when they start dating girls. Using mat rather heavily after graduating from university is a differnet^([sic]) matter.
- Don't you people have anything better to do than collecting mat. I still can't undestand why people in (and from) the ex-USSR like to swear so much.
資料來源：英文維基詞典 English Wiktionary（CC BY-SA 4.0）。 原文照列，未經改寫。