locate definition

English locate definition

Etymology

Borrowed from Latin locātus, past participle of loco (“to place”), from locus (“place”).

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ləʊˈkeɪt/, /ləˈkeɪt/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /ˈloʊkeɪt/, /loʊˈkeɪt/

• Audio (US)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -eɪt
• Hyphenation: lo‧cate

Verb

locate (third-person singular simple present locates, present participle locating, simple past and past participle located)

1. (transitive) To place; to set in a particular spot or position.
   • 1881, Brooke Foss Westcott, The New Testament in the Original Greek

     The captives and emigrants whom he brought with him were located in the trans-Tiberine quarter.

   • 2013 June 22, “T time”, in The Economist, volume 407, number 8841, page 68:

     The ability to shift profits to low-tax countries by locating intellectual property in them, which is then licensed to related businesses in high-tax countries, is often assumed to be the preserve of high-tech companies.

2. (transitive) To find out where something is located.
   • 2013 May-June, Kevin Heng, “Why Does Nature Form Exoplanets Easily?”, in American Scientist, volume 101, number 3, page 184:

     In the past two years, NASA’s Kepler Space Telescope has located nearly 3,000 exoplanet candidates ranging from sub-Earth-sized minions to gas giants that dwarf our own Jupiter. Their densities range from that of styrofoam to iron.

   • 1920, Mary Roberts Rinehart; Avery Hopwood, chapter I, in The Bat: A Novel from the Play (Dell Book; 241), New York, N.Y.: Dell Publishing Company, OCLC 20230794, page 01:

     The Bat—they called him the Bat. […]. He […] played a lone hand, […]. Most lone wolves had a moll at any rate—women were their ruin—but if the Bat had a moll, not even the grapevine telegraph could locate her.

3. (transitive) To designate the site or place of; to define the limits of (Note: the designation may be purely descriptive: it need not be prescriptive.)

   The council must locate the new hospital

   to locate a mining claim

   to locate (the land granted by) a land warrant

   • 1862-1892, Herbert Spencer, System of Synthetic Philosophy

     That part of the body in which the sense of touch is located.

4. (intransitive, colloquial) To place oneself; to take up one's residence; to settle.

   (Can we add an example for this sense?)

Derived terms

• co-locate

Related terms

Translations

Anagrams

• Alecto, acetol, coleta

Italian locate definition

Etymology 1

Verb

locate

1. inflection of locare:
   1. second-person plural present indicative
   2. second-person plural imperative

Etymology 2

Participle

locate f pl

1. feminine plural of locato

Anagrams

• celato, colate, cotale

Latin locate definition

Participle

locāte

1. vocative masculine singular of locātus