congratulate
verb
Simple meaning
To express one's sympathetic pleasure or joy to the person it is felt for.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
kuhngrachuhlaytSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
kənɡˈɹætʃəleɪt
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
verb
To express one's sympathetic pleasure or joy to the person(s) it is felt for
Express congratulations
reflexive
To consider oneself fortunate in some matter.
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- C1 · Advanced
- Frequency
- Uncommon
- Typical Use
- Neutral / general English
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: To express one's sympathetic pleasure or joy to the person(s) it is felt for
Used this way, congratulate is a reasonably familiar word with a clearly warm, approving pull. It carries warmth, so it reads as personal rather than detached.
- Emotional tone
- Positive
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Moderate
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- Kind and considerate
- Usage feel
- Warm and expressive
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
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Common Patterns and Combinations
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.