rate
noun
- price paid or charged for a service
verb
- establish value or worth, evaluation
Wiktionary
Pronunciation: /ɹeɪt/
noun
Etymology: From Middle English rate, from Old French rate, from Medieval Latin rata, from Latin prō ratā parte (“according to a fixed part”), from ratus (“fixed”), from rērī (“think, deem, judge, estimate", originally "reckon, calculate”).
- The worth of something; value.
“There shall no figure at such rate be set, / As that of true and faithfull Iuliet.”
“His natural parts were not of the first rate, but he had greatly improved them by a learned education.”
- The proportional relationship between one amount, value etc. and another.
“At the height of his powers, he was producing pictures at the rate of four a year.”
“Negative responses to this program were being received by the office of the National Gay Task Force at the rate of ten to one.”
- Speed.
“The car was speeding down here at a hell of a rate.”
“Many of the horse could not march at that rate, nor come up soon enough.”
- The relative speed of change or progress.
“The rate of production at the factory is skyrocketing.”
- The price of (an individual) thing; cost.
“He asked quite a rate to take me to the airport.”
- A set price or charge for all examples of a given case, commodity, service etc.
“Postal rates here are low.”
- A wage calculated in relation to a unit of time.
“We pay an hourly rate of between $10 – $15 per hour depending on qualifications and experience.”
- Any of various taxes, especially those levied by a local authority.
“I hardly have enough left every month to pay the rates.”
- A class into which ships were assigned based on condition, size etc.; by extension, rank.
“This textbook is first-rate.”
- Established portion or measure; fixed allowance; ration.
“The one right feeble through the evil rate / Of food which in her duress she had found.”
- Order; arrangement.
“Thus sat they all around in seemly rate.”
- Ratification; approval.
“c. 1610s, George Chapman, Caesar and Pompey Tis offerd, Sir, 'boue the rate of Caesar In other men, but in what I approue Beneath his merits: which I will not faile T'enforce at full to Pompey, nor forget In any time the gratitude of my seruice.”
- The gain or loss of a timepiece in a unit of time.
“daily rate; hourly rate; etc.”
verb
Etymology: Related to, or a variant of, ret. (Found dialectally also as rait.)
- To cause (hay, hemp, flax, etc) to decay (whether in an injurious way, or—as retting—in a useful way) by exposure to weather, particularly wetness.
“From the "line pit" it [flax] is carried to the “RATING GROUND;" - a piece of unbroken aftergrass, where the sheaflets are untied, and the flax spread thin upon the grass. It is calculated, that a full crop ought to cover as much ground as it grew upon. Here it lies until it be sufficiently "rated;" namely, until the more woodlike substance of the stems will separate […]”
“[…] hay when it is cocked either wette or greene, for then sure it is to be rated, and beinge rated looseth both the goode smell and goode taste; and likewise the colour, as yow may perceive by the blackenesse of the cocke on the outside; for if the[…]”