"mating" in the noun sense
1. coupling, mating, pairing, conjugation, union, sexual union
the act of pairing a male and female for reproductive purposes
"the casual couplings of adolescents"
"the mating of some species occurs only in the spring"
"mating" in the verb sense
1. copulate, mate, pair, couple
engage in sexual intercourse
"Birds mate in the Spring"
2. match, mate, couple, pair, twin
bring two objects, ideas, or people together
"This fact is coupled to the other one"
"Matchmaker, can you match my daughter with a nice young man?"
"The student was paired with a partner for collaboration on the project"
3. checkmate, mate
place an opponent's king under an attack from which it cannot escape and thus ending the game
"Kasparov checkmated his opponent after only a few moves"
Source: WordNet® (An amazing lexical database of English)
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