segregate
verb · adjective · noun
Simple meaning
Separate or isolate from another and place in a group apart from others.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
sehgruhgaytSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
ˈsɛɡɹəɡeɪt
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
Separate by race or religion; practice a policy of racial segregation
Separate or isolate (one thing) from another and place in a group apart from others
intransitivepolitics
To separate (races, sexes, or other groups, especially black and white people), especially by social policies that directly or indirectly keep them apart.
transitive
In particular, to separate and organize by characteristics.
adjective
Separate; select.
geology
Separate from a mass and collected together along lines of fraction.
noun
An entity that is separated in some way from a reference group or entity.
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- C2 · Proficient (estimated)
- Frequency
- Rare
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: Separate by race or religion; practice a policy of racial segregation
Used this way, segregate is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. This is a religious use: it carries the weight of tradition and ceremony.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- No strong connotation
- Usage feel
- Neutral and straightforward
Where it naturally appears
- Religion/spirituality
- Historical writing
- Government/politics
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
More ways to use segregate
- “This neighborhood is segregated.”verb
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Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
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Word Family
Related forms, grouped by how they connect.
Inflected forms
Grammatical variations of the same word.
Separated or isolated from others or a main group.
More about this wordSynonyms, forms, origin
Antonyms
Sense: separate by race or religion
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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.