tea

First appears c. 1655, in the writings of Álvaro Semedo. From Dutch thee, from Hokkien 茶 (tê) (Amoy dialect), from Old Chinese, ultimately from Proto-Sino-Tibetan *s-la (“leaf, tea”). Introduced to English and other Western European languages by the Dutch East India Company, who sourced their tea in Amoy; compare Malay teh along the same trade route. Doublet of chai and cha (and, distantly, lahpet), from same Proto-Sino-Tibetan root; see discussion of cognates.

Sense 10 (“information, especially gossip”) is originally from T standing for truth, which evolved into tea.

• tay

• (Received Pronunciation) enPR: tē, IPA^(key): /tiː/, [tʰiː]

• Audio (RP)

  (file)

• (General American) enPR: tē, IPA^(key): /ti/, [tʰi]

• Audio (GA)

  (file)

• Audio (AU)

  (file)

• Homophones: T, te, tee, ti
• Rhymes: -iː

tea (countable and uncountable, plural teas)

1. (uncountable) The tea plant (Camellia sinensis); (countable) a variety of this plant.

   Darjeeling tea is grown in India.

2. (uncountable) The dried leaves or buds of the tea plant; (countable) a variety of such leaves.

   Go to the supermarket and buy some Darjeeling tea.

   Not for all the tea in China.

3. (uncountable) The drink made by infusing these dried leaves or buds in hot water.

   Would you like some tea?

   • 1921, Ben Travers, chapter 2, in A Cuckoo in the Nest, Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, Page & Company, published 1925, →OCLC:

     Mother […] considered that the exclusiveness of Peter's circle was due not to its distinction, but to the fact that it was an inner Babylon of prodigality and whoredom, from which every Kensingtonian held aloof, except on the conventional tip-and-run excursions in pursuit of shopping, tea and theatres.

4. Any drink which is similar to Camellia sinensis tea in some way:
   • 2019 February 12, Maryea Flaherty, Anti-Inflammatory Drinks for Health: 100 Smoothies, Shots, Teas, Broths, and Seltzers to Help Prevent Disease, Lose Weight, Increase Energy, Look Radiant, Reduce Pain, and More!, Simon and Schuster, →ISBN, page 141:

     Mushroom Tea / 8 cups water / 1 cup dried reishi mushroom pieces [...] 1. Start by making Reishi Mushroom Tea: Bring water to a boil in a medium saucepan. 2. Add the reishi mushroom pieces […]

   1. (uncountable) Any similar drink made by infusing parts of various other plants.

      Hyponym: herbal tea

      camomile tea; mint tea

      • 2017 January 3, Gilles Diederichs, My Anti-Stress Year: 52 Weeks of Soothing Activities and Wellness Advice, Simon and Schuster, →ISBN:

        Curcuma tea relieves colds […]

   2. (uncountable, in combination) Meat stock served as a hot drink.

      beef tea

5. (countable, Commonwealth, northern US) A cup or (East Asia, Southern US) glass of any of these drinks, often with milk, sugar, lemon, and/or tapioca pearls.

   We'd like one tea and one coffee, please.

6. (uncountable, UK) A light midafternoon meal, typically but not necessarily including tea.

   I won't make it to the breakfast event, but I'll see you at the tea.

   • 1951, C. S. Lewis, Prince Caspian: The Return to Narnia:

     But the gorge of the Rush was not at all a nice place for travelling either. I mean, it was not a nice place for people in a hurry. For an afternoon's ramble ending in a picnic tea it would have been delightful.

   • 1991, Stephen Fry, The Liar, London: Heinemann, →OCLC, page 23:

     Tea was a very special institution, revolving as it did around the ceremony and worship of Toast. In [public schools] where alcohol, tobacco and drugs were forbidden, it was essential that something should take their place as a powerful and public totem of virility and cool. Toast, for reasons lost in time, was the substance chosen.

7. (uncountable, Commonwealth, Ireland) Synonym of supper, the main evening meal, whether or not it includes tea.

   The family were sitting round the table, eating their tea.

   • 2018, Ray Wyre, Tim Tate, The Murder of Childhood, page 126:

     Jacki set about making the tea—bacon grills with chips and bread and butter.

8. (cricket) The break in play between the second and third sessions.

   Australia were 490 for 7 at tea on the second day.

   • 2009, “What do cricketers eat at tea? When is it safe to flush on the train? What's a plujit?”, Notes and queries: Life and style, in The Guardian‎:

     As recently as the mid-80s the players would be given a bottle of beer at lunchtime at some county grounds, and "tea" still meant a cup of tea into the 90s.

9. (slang, dated) Synonym of marijuana.
   • 1940, Raymond Chandler, Farewell, My Lovely, Penguin, published 2010, page 103:

     So they were evidence. Evidence of what? That a man occasionally smoked a stick of tea, a man who looked as if any touch of the exotic would appeal to him. On the other hand lots of tough guys smoked marijuana […] .

   • 1946, Milton “Mezz” Mezzrow, Bernard Wolfe, “Them First Kicks are a Killer”, in Really the Blues, New York, N.Y.: Random House, book 2 (1923–1928: Chicago, Chicago), page 74:

     Tea puts a musician in a real masterly sphere, and that's why so many jazzmen have used it.

   • 1947 March 11, William Burroughs, letter:

     Here in Texas possession of tea is a felony calling for 2 years.

   • 1957, Jack Kerouac, On the Road, Viking Press, →OCLC:

     Seeing that we didn’t know anything about ourselves, he whipped out three sticks of tea and said to go ahead, supper’d be ready soon.

10. (slang, especially gay slang and African-American Vernacular) Information, especially gossip.

    Spill the tea on that drama, hon.

    • 1992, Lea DeLaria, “Ms. DeLaria's Dating Tips for Dykes”, in Bulldyke in a China Shop (spoken-word comedy album):

      Now I've told you that I've taken LSD, and you think I'm gonna leap through a window or something like that. And you know why that is, that's because of Art Linkletter's daughter.... But let me give you the tea on her, see, she took LSD, realized she was Art Linkletter's daughter, and threw herself out of the window!

    • 2015, Sonya Shuman, Doors of the Church Are Open: Smoke & Mirrors by Sonya Shuman:

      "What's the tea on you and China? Where she at Alicia? You should know where ya baby at."

11. (Can we verify⁽⁺⁾ this sense?) (Nigeria) Hot chocolate.

In most places tea is assumed to mean hot tea, while in the southern United States, it is assumed to mean iced tea.

• (plant): tea plant, tea tree, tea bush
• (leaves): tea leaves
• (beverage): see Thesaurus:tea
• (beverages similar to tea): herb tea, herbal tea, infusion, tisane
• (a light meal): see afternoon tea & Thesaurus:meal

• (beverage): see Thesaurus:tea

• Gullah: tea
• Jamaican Creole: tea
• → Abenaki: ti
• → Chickasaw: tii'
• → Cocopa: ṭi·
• → Cornish: té
• → Cree:

  Canadian syllabics script: ᑎᕀ (tiy)

  Latin script: tiy

• → Inuktitut: ᑏ (tii)
• → Irish: tae
• → Maori: tī
• → Malecite-Passamaquoddy: ti
• → Mikasuki: ti'g'tlo'q, ji'gitlo'q (“kettle”) (from "tea kettle")
• → Panamint: tii
• → Scottish Gaelic: tì, teatha
• → Tamil: டீ (ṭī)
• → Telugu: టీ (ṭī)
• → Unami: ti
• → Welsh: te

tea (third-person singular simple present teas, present participle teaing, simple past and past participle teaed or tea'd or tead)

1. (intransitive) To drink tea.
   • 1916 March 28, Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother, “Elizabeth”, in William Shawcross, editor, Counting One’s Blessings: The Selected Letters of Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother, New York, N.Y.: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, published 2012, page 32:

     We tea’d with May, and had to wait over an hour for a taxi!

   • 1837, Benjamin Disraeli, Benjamin Disraeli Letters: 1835-1837, Toronto, Buffalo, London: University of Toronto Press, published 1982, →ISBN, page 319:

     I dined yesterday at | three on mutton chops and 1/2 pint of E[ast] I [ndian] sherry, and then tead and muffined' at 8.

   • 1921, Desmos of Delta Sigma Delta, page 41:

     We coffeed and tead and smoked a trench torch with Grand Master Browning, and cranked our Cadillac for another station.

2. (intransitive) To take afternoon tea (the light meal).
   • 1877, The Bicycling Times and Tourist's Gazette, page 38:

     The wind was high and the hills ditto, and both being against us we were late in reaching Hitchin (30 from Cambridge), so giving up the idea of reaching Oxford we toiled on through Luton, on to Dunstable (47), where we teaed moderately […]

3. (transitive) To give tea to.
   • 1858, Benedict Cruiser, “Of the Agonising Process by which that which was once a Bower of Bliss was converted into a Cave of Despair”, in George Augustus Sala, editor, How I Tamed Mrs. Cruiser, London: James Blackwood, page 129:

     And they’ve got Professor Hummums with ’em, the great Everlasting Star of the Nineteenth Century, which he has breakfasted and dined and tea’d and supped here ever since yesterday.

   • 1863, chapter I, in Hospital Transports. A Memoir of the Embarkation of the Sick and Wounded from the Peninsula of Virginia in the Summer of 1862., Boston, Mass.: Ticknor and Fields, page 25:

     In half an hour they had all been tea’d and coffeed and refreshed by the nurses, and shortly after were all undressed and put to bed clean and comfortable, and in a droll state of grateful wonder;

   • 1866, Emma Jane Worboise, “The St. Beetha’s Temperance Society”, in St. Beetha’s; or, The Heiress of Arne, London: “Christian World” Office, […]; Jackson, Walford, and Hodder, […], →OCLC, page 213:

     But one or two evil-disposed characters muttered they might be sure the lady had her own turn to serve, and they might be sure they wasn't "teaed and muffined and sandwiched for nothing!"

   • 1909, The Public, page 109:

     This gentleman was presented by Colonel C. E. S. Wood, and was entertained here—wined, dined, tead, breakfasted, coffeed and luncheoned—and we bought his pictures.

   • 2019, Jordaina Sydney Robinson, Dead Completely (Afterlife Adventures Series):

     After I’d tea’d everyone and Oz had breakfasted them, […]

Semantic loan from Chinese 茶 (chá, “tea”).

tea (plural teas)

1. A moment, a historical unit of time from China, about the amount of time needed to quickly drink a traditional cup of tea. It is now found in Chinese-language historical fiction.

This term is found in English translations of Chinese-language historical fiction, where it is used to give the work an ancient Chinese feel.

• eta, æt., -ate, eat, AET, aet, a.e.t., ETA, aet., ate, Até, eta., Atë

tea

1. absolutive singular of te

tea

1. feces; excrement

tea

1. present indicative connegative of teadma
2. second-person singular imperative of teadma

From Old Galician-Portuguese tea (13th century, Cantigas de Santa Maria), from Latin tēla. Cognate with Portuguese teia and Spanish tela.

• IPA^(key): /ˈtea̝/

tea f (plural teas)

1. (uncountable) cloth
2. (countable) a piece of cloth
   • 1326, Antonio López Ferreiro, editor, Galicia Histórica. Colección diplomática, Santiago: Tipografía Galaica, page 300:

     It. mando que todollos lenços delgados et teas de rens que os tome Garcia perez. et que faça delles fazer uestimentas para o altar de Sta Maria.

     Item, I command that every fine linen and the clothes of Reims to be taken by Garcia Perez, who should make them into clothes for the altar of Saint Mary

3. spiderweb

   Synonym: arañeira

4. canvas

   Synonym: lenzo

5. film (skin)

   Synonym: película

• tear

From Old Galician-Portuguese tea (13th century, Cantigas de Santa Maria), from Latin taeda, from Ancient Greek δάος (dáos, “torch”).

• IPA^(key): /ˈtea̝/

tea f (plural teas)

1. torch

   Synonyms: facha, fachuzo

• “tea” in Dicionario de Dicionarios do galego medieval, SLI - ILGA 2006–2022.
• “tea” in Xavier Varela Barreiro & Xavier Gómez Guinovart: Corpus Xelmírez - Corpus lingüístico da Galicia medieval. SLI / Grupo TALG / ILG, 2006-2016.
• “tea” in Dicionario de Dicionarios da lingua galega, SLI - ILGA 2006–2013.
• “tea” in Tesouro informatizado da lingua galega. Santiago: ILG.
• “tea” in Álvarez, Rosario (coord.): Tesouro do léxico patrimonial galego e portugués, Santiago de Compostela: Instituto da Lingua Galega.

From Dutch thee, from Hokkien 茶 (tê, “tea”).

• IPA^(key): [ˈtɛɒ], [ˈtɛjɒ]
• Hyphenation: tea
• Rhymes: -ɒ, -jɒ

tea (countable and uncountable, plural teák)

1. tea

• tea in Bárczi, Géza and László Országh. A magyar nyelv értelmező szótára (‘The Explanatory Dictionary of the Hungarian Language’, abbr.: ÉrtSz.). Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó, 1959–1962. Fifth ed., 1992: →ISBN

• Eta

From Proto-Polynesian *tea. Compare Hawaiian kea and Rapa Nui tea tea.

tea

1. white

   Synonym: mā

2. light-coloured
3. clear, transparent

• Aotearoa

tea

1. dawn

• tea tea

tea

1. water
2. body of water: river, lake, etc
3. liquid
4. wine

• Kenneth D. Smith, Sedang Dictionary (2012), page 375

• teda (rare)

Inherited from Latin tēda, early monophthongized variant of Latin taeda (“torch”).

• IPA^(key): /ˈtea/ [ˈt̪e.a]
• Rhymes: -ea
• Syllabification: te‧a

tea f (plural teas)

1. torch (a stick with a flame on one end, used chiefly as a light source)

   Synonym: antorcha

   • 1897, Ángel Ganivet, La conquista del reino de Maya por el último conquistador español Pío Cid, page 5:

     La reunión terminaba siempre cuando se iban a apagar las teas, cuya duración era de cuatro o cinco horas.

     The meeting ended whenever the torches, whose duration was about four or five hours, were going to go out.

   • 2013 August 18, Gertrudis María Glück, “El Viaje del Lector: Alemania”, in Clarín‎:

     En esa época en que aún no existía el vidrio, para resguardarse del frío se tapiaban las ventanas con tablas de madera. A su vez, la iluminación se realizaba con teas que llenaban de humo los ambientes cerrados.

     In that era when glass still didn't exist, to protect themselves from the cold, they boarded up windows with wooden planks. In turn, lighting was achieved with torches that filled closed environments with smoke.

2. (colloquial) intoxication, drunkenness

   Synonyms: see Thesaurus:borrachera

• “tea”, in Diccionario de la lengua española, Vigésima tercera edición, Real Academia Española, 2014