Word Direct Answers

What does "mat" mean?

Mat: A fabric of sedge, rushes, flags, husks, straw, hemp, or similar material, used for wiping and cleaning shoes at the door, for covering the floor of a hall or room, and for other purposes.

Additional senses

  1. 2.Any similar fabric for various uses, as for covering plant houses, putting beneath dishes or lamps on a table, securing rigging from friction, and the like.
  2. 3.Anything growing thickly, or closely interwoven, so as to resemble a mat in form or texture; as, a mat of weeds; a mat of hair.
  3. 4.An ornamental border made of paper, pasterboard, metal, etc., put under the glass which covers a framed picture; as, the mat of a daguerreotype. Mat grass. (Bot.) (a) A low, tufted, European grass (Nardus stricta). (b) Same as Matweed. -- Mat rush (Bot.), a kind of rush (Scirpus lacustris) used in England for making mats.
  4. 5.To cover or lay with mats. Evelyn.
  5. 6.To twist, twine, or felt together; to interweave into, or like, a mat; to entangle. And o'er his eyebrows hung his matted hair. Dryden.
  6. 7.To grow thick together; to become interwoven or felted together like a mat.

Sources