“Ate” or “Eight”—Which to use?

“Ate” or “Eight”

Overview

ate / eight are similar-sounding terms with different meanings (referred to as homophones). To better understand the differences, see below for definitions, pronunciation guides, and example sentences using each term. 👇

Definitions

ate: (noun) goddess of criminal rashness and its punishment.

eight: (noun) the cardinal number that is the sum of seven and one. (adjective) being one more than seven.

Pronunciation

ate: EY·t

eight: EY·t

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Examples in Context

Examples of “ate”

…avoid being detected, they mostly ate the meat raw, often without…
…instance, officers on the Neva ate fresh meat, while the lower…
…mouldy and rotted, and ants ate all of the collected insects.
Poor people ate chicken almost only when they…
…one point they killed and ate two buffaloes and hung their…
…noun petra (πέτρα in Greek), translated as rock in the phrase…
…a now unknown reason, he ate nothing that day.
Dingoes Ate My Baby
Prisoners ate whatever wild animals they could…
…guitarist for the band Dingoes Ate My Baby (a reference to…

Examples of “eight”

…in three magazines, Twin Earths (eight issues), Twin Earths Sunday Pages…
These eight festivals are the most common…
…British festal system" consisting of eight holidays: "English social life was…
All eight conference teams participate in the
…were sentenced to five to eight years in labour camps (gulag).
…hope to have six - eight Cover To Cover titles in…
The other eight constituencies of the Mid Scotland…
…hour, usually between three and eight minutes in length.
On the death of Christopher eight years later, Adolphus' influence secured…
So instead, they covered eight songs by other Spanish-speaking artists,…

(Examples are Wikipedia snippets under the CC ShareAlike 3.0 license. Definitions drawn from WordNet.)

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