cebar

To bait or feed, with two especially common uses: cebar un anzuelo (to bait a fishhook/trap) and, in the Río de la Plata region (Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay), cebar el mate — the specific ritual of preparing and pouring hot water into a shared mate gourd for the group. Also used for fattening livestock: cebar a los cerdos.

• Cebó el anzuelo antes de lanzar la caña. — He baited the hook before casting the rod.
• Mi abuela siempre ceba el mate por las mañanas. — My grandmother always prepares the mate every morning.
• Cebaron a los cerdos para la feria. — They fattened the pigs for the fair.

In the Southern Cone, cebar (el mate) is a specific social ritual with its own etiquette about who cebas for and in what order — treating it as a generic word for 'to make/pour a drink' misses the cultural weight it carries.

• expression "Cebar el mate" — The standard term for preparing and serving mate in the shared-gourd ritual central to Argentine, Uruguayan, and Paraguayan culture — the person who ceba, the cebador/a, traditionally controls the order and pace of the round.