activates
SayAK-ti-vayts/ˈæktɪˌveɪts/
- 1Third-person singular simple present of activate.
The sensor activates the sprinklers as soon as it detects smoke.
Heat activates the chemical reaction inside the pack.
Note
A form that nearly always arrives with an object attached. Every meaning of the verb is transitive, so something activates something: a sensor activates an alarm, heat activates a reaction, a process activates a molecule. The subject can be a person or the trigger itself. The same pattern holds across the verb's technical range, from setting off a device to rendering a substance radioactive or a molecule effective.
activates is a form of activate
activate, verb: To put a device, mechanism, or system into action; to trigger or set off. Full entry
- Forms
- activateactivates he/she/itactivating -ing formactivated past tense, past participle
- Spelling
- activate → activates: add -s
- Sound
- The ending sounds like /s/.
Use it in a sentence
Write your own sentence with activates, and AI will tell you whether it fits and which meaning you used.