sate

1
as in to gorge
to fill with food to capacity I sated myself with an array of decadent offerings from the dessert table

Synonyms & Similar Words

Relevance

Antonyms & Near Antonyms

2
as in to satisfy
to put a complete end to (a physical need or desire) a huge meal that should have sated everyone's hunger

Synonyms & Similar Words

Antonyms & Near Antonyms

Synonym Chooser

How is the word sate different from other verbs like it?

Some common synonyms of sate are cloy, glut, gorge, pall, satiate, and surfeit. While all these words mean "to fill to repletion," satiate and sate may sometimes imply only complete satisfaction but more often suggest repletion that has destroyed interest or desire.

years of globe-trotting had satiated their interest in travel
readers were sated with sensationalistic stories

When could cloy be used to replace sate?

While in some cases nearly identical to sate, cloy stresses the disgust or boredom resulting from such surfeiting.

sentimental pictures that cloy after a while

When can glut be used instead of sate?

The words glut and sate are synonyms, but do differ in nuance. Specifically, glut implies excess in feeding or supplying.

a market glutted with diet books

When would gorge be a good substitute for sate?

While the synonyms gorge and sate are close in meaning, gorge suggests glutting to the point of bursting or choking.

gorged themselves with chocolate

When is it sensible to use pall instead of sate?

Although the words pall and sate have much in common, pall emphasizes the loss of ability to stimulate interest or appetite.

a life of leisure eventually begins to pall

Where would surfeit be a reasonable alternative to sate?

The words surfeit and sate can be used in similar contexts, but surfeit implies a nauseating repletion.

surfeited themselves with junk food

Example Sentences

Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to show current usage. Read More Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.
Recent Examples of sate The fast food chain briefly brought them back in 2018, but wasn’t enough to sate the demands of the Cini Mini fandom. Melissa Locker, Southern Living, 26 Aug. 2025 For now, the Netflix movie and the eventual stage play will have to sate his fans. Ryan Lattanzio, IndieWire, 24 Aug. 2025 Jack in the Box restaurants are also open later than many fast-food competitors to sate those after-hours cravings. Robert Channick, Chicago Tribune, 15 Aug. 2025 So the Los Angeles Lakers, in desperate need of quality depth to contend in the brutal Western Conference, are left to sate their free-agency desires with the middling likes of Deandre Ayton and Marcus Smart. Ira Winderman, Sun Sentinel, 2 Aug. 2025 See All Example Sentences for sate
Recent Examples of Synonyms for sate
Verb
  • Chief among them is that kids have been gorging on Kit-Kats and Starbursts for decades, on this one day a year.
    Melissa Willets, Parents, 7 Oct. 2025
  • The bears have been trying to fatten up by gorging on salmon — including at times by only eating the skin, brains and eggs to focus on the most calories — before hibernating for the winter.
    Phil Helsel, NBC news, 1 Oct. 2025
Verb
  • Trump needed to satisfy Netanyahu’s political needs to get to this point, but now Trump needs to steamroll over them to put in place the next stage.
    Thomas L. Friedman, Mercury News, 16 Oct. 2025
  • They’ve been almost monomaniacally determined to deliver a climactic final eight episodes that provide not only a feeling of resolution, but of satisfying inevitability.
    Kate Aurthur, Variety, 15 Oct. 2025
Verb
  • On Sunday, Jeanty was stopped for a loss or no gain on four of his 10 runs against light boxes, and overall, the Las Vegas Raiders were stuffed 11 times on 29 attempts — the most of any team in a game this season.
    Vic Tafur, New York Times, 16 Oct. 2025
  • All thirty-six members of D’Angelo‘s touring band and crew are stuffed into his dressing room, hands linked, heads bowed in a large prayer circle.
    Touré, Rolling Stone, 14 Oct. 2025
Verb
  • Yet the train of military vehicles that appeared was remarkably tame, a cavalcade of superannuated weapons platforms serving as a reminder of the degree to which the military-industrial complex, glutted with money and pampered by Congress, has run out of new ideas.
    Seth Harp, Harpers Magazine, 19 Sep. 2025
  • Thanks to builder strategies, shifting home designs and a new construction glut the trend has flipped.
    Brandon Kochkodin, Forbes.com, 27 Aug. 2025
Verb
  • As a theater critic surfeited with plays, radio dramas worked best for me as an unplanned diversion in my car.
    Charles McNulty, Los Angeles Times, 28 May 2025
  • But the younger people making theater now are drawn to it now because they’ve been surfeited with digital culture.
    Michael Phillips, Chicago Tribune, 17 Mar. 2023
Verb
  • On the play Warner got hurt, the 49ers were missing a right defensive end, and coaches mistakenly assumed practice-squad call-up Trevis Gipson stayed on the field to fill that role after racing down on kickoff coverage and making the initial hit on a tackle.
    Cam Inman, Mercury News, 17 Oct. 2025
  • So does Stagier Bar, with creations like dumplings filled with lomo saltado, a Peruvian dish of sautéed beef that hints at the chef Joel Baeza’s Latin American roots.
    Emilio Parra Doiztua, New York Times, 16 Oct. 2025

Browse Nearby Words

Cite this Entry

“Sate.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/sate. Accessed 18 Oct. 2025.

More from Merriam-Webster on sate

Last Updated: - Updated example sentences
Love words? Need even more definitions?

Subscribe to America's largest dictionary and get thousands more definitions and advanced search—ad free!