matar

Meaning

1. to kill (to cause to die)
2. (figuratively,transitive) to kill; to eradicate; to destroy
3. (figuratively,informal,transitive) to kill (to cause extreme pain, distress or exhaustion in)
4. (transitive) to kill (to write a story that conveys the death of)
5. (figuratively,transitive) to satisfy, to satiate, to quench (to fulfil an emotional or physiological need)
6. (figuratively,pronominal) to break one's back (to make a great effort)
7. (colloquial,transitive) to spend [a period of time] doing unimportant things
8. (Brazil,slang,transitive) to skip (not to be present in a class)
9. (informal,transitive) to solve (to find the solution to a mystery)
10. (Brazil,slang,transitive) to consume something entirely (especially an alcoholic drink); to knock down
11. (transitive) to stop a moving ball
12. (transitive) to pocket (to cause a ball to go into one of the pockets of the table)

Hyphenated as

ma‧tar

Pronounced as (IPA)

/maˈta(ʁ)/

Etymology

From Old Galician-Portuguese matar, probably from Latin mactāre (through Vulgar Latin *mattāre). The development of -ct- would be irregular, however. Hence possibly derived from or influenced by Late Latin mattus (“drunk, intoxicated”), related to madidus. Another possibility is an influence by Arabic مَاتَ (māta, “to die”).
The short past participle is derived from Latin morīre, an unrelated verb that means "to die."