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locate

verb

Simple meaning

Determine or indicate the place, site, or limits of, as if by an instrument or by a survey.

Pronunciation

Say it like this:

lohkayt

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US device voice
IPA pronunciation (US)

ˈloʊkeɪt

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.

Word Review

Definition

Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.

verb

  1. Determine or indicate the place, site, or limits of, as if by an instrument or by a survey

    “Our sense of sight enables us to locate objects in space.”

  2. transitive

    To place; to set in a particular spot or position.

  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.)

  4. intransitivecolloquial

    To place oneself; to take up one's residence; to settle.

  5. transitive

    To find out where something is located.

Word at a Glance

Difficulty
A2 · Elementary (estimated)
Frequency
Common
Typical Use
Everyday English

Word Aura™

How this word commonly comes across.

Aura for this meaning

This meaning: Determine or indicate the place, site, or limits of, as if by an instrument or by a survey

Used this way, locate is a common word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It usually sounds natural in a wide range of settings.

Heard in a sentence
“Our sense of sight enables us to locate objects in space.”
Emotional tone
Neutral
Formality
Neutral
Intensity
Not strongly marked
How common
Common
Connotation
No strong connotation
Usage feel
Neutral and straightforward

Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.

More ways to use locate

  • “Our sense of sight enables us to locate objects in space.”verb
  • “Can you locate your cousins in the Midwest?”verb

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Common Patterns and Combinations

How this word naturally appears with others.

locate informationquickly locateeasily locate

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Word Family

Related forms, grouped by how they connect.

Inflected forms

Grammatical variations of the same word.

  • locatingnounInflected form

    The act of putting something in a certain place.

Word family

Words built from the same root.

  • locatornounPerson or profession

    A person who fixes the boundaries of land claims.

More about this wordSynonyms, forms, origin

Synonyms

Sense: determine or indicate the place or site

relocate

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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.