パテ

French pâté is the source form for the food sense of Japanese パテ, and Shogakukan Digital Daijisen separates it from another パテ meaning putty. Britannica explains pâté as a French cuisine term for a meat, game, or fish preparation, including pâté en terrine and pâté en croûte. Larousse also treats pâté as a cuisine noun from pâte. The accent in pâté is lost in katakana, and French plural pâtés is not marked in Japanese. The food word is adopted in Japanese through French cooking, Western-style restaurants, hotel dining, and later deli counters in urban food halls. In Japanese food labels, パテ appears with テリーヌ, ムース, ペースト, レバーペースト, and フォアグラ. The meaning shifts from a wider French category that can include crusted preparations to a compact name for seasoned meat or fish spread, often eaten with bread or crackers. Modern Japanese パテ usually refers to an appetizer or a spreadable item, not the English word paste in general. It also coexists with building-material パテ from putty, so context matters. Merriam-Webster distinguishes pâté from pate meaning "head," but Japanese パテ does not use that meaning. Example: 鶏レバーのパテ means chicken liver pâté served as food.