integrate

Formsintegrates, integrating, integrated

1. 1
   verbtransitive

   To include something as a constituent part or built-in function of a larger whole.

   Engineers integrate sensors directly into the chassis to monitor performance.

   The platform integrates several reporting tools into a single dashboard.

   Similarincorporate, embed, combine, consolidate, include

   Oppositeseparate

2. 2
   verbintransitivereflexive

   To join a group or setting harmoniously and make oneself fit in.

   New employees who integrate quickly tend to enjoy their jobs more.

   She struggled to integrate after moving to a country where she knew no one.

   Similarassimilate, adapt, adjust, settle

   Note

   Unlike most of the word's senses, this one usually takes no object. People integrate into a community, and a building can integrate with the forest around it. Into suits joining a group, while with suits blending in alongside something. Occasionally it turns reflexive, as when newcomers integrate themselves. That form stresses the effort of fitting in rather than the result.

3. 3
   verbtransitive

   To end racial segregation in an institution or area, such as a school or neighborhood, opening it to all races.

   Federal troops were sent to help integrate the university in 1962.

   Activists fought to integrate lunch counters across the South.

   Similardesegregate

   Oppositesegregate

   Note

   A word of mid-twentieth-century American civil rights struggle, and its object was the institution rather than the people. The National Guard was called out to integrate Little Rock Central High School, and activists integrated the buses. Its opposite is segregate. Bernard Lafayette Jr., writing in 2020 about John Lewis, puts it plainly: they integrated the buses by sitting in the front row.

4. 4
   verbtransitive

   To combine compatible elements and incorporate them into a single functioning whole.

   Retroviruses integrate their DNA into the genome of the cells they infect.

   The body integrates the transplanted tissue with surrounding cells over several weeks.

   Similarincorporate, insert, assimilate

   Note

   A molecular biologist's word for an insertion that lasts. A segment of genetic material is incorporated into a host genome, then copied and expressed as part of the cell's own DNA. Retroviruses do exactly this. The usual construction is integrate into, and the elements must be compatible, because integration here means a stable joining, not a temporary mixture.

5. 5
   verbtransitive

   To compute the total accumulation of a varying quantity across an interval, such as a span of time or an area.

   To find the displacement, integrate the velocity function over the given interval.

   Engineers integrate the load distribution across the beam to find the total force.

   Oppositedifferentiate

   Note

   Calculus gives this sense its exact meaning: summing the infinitesimal contributions of a continuously varying quantity, pictured as the signed area under its graph over an interval. Outside the classroom it turns up in measurement. A five-minute integrated wind speed is a reading taken across those five minutes rather than at a single instant. You integrate a rate over time to get a total.

6. 6
   verbtransitive

   To perform the operation of integration on a function or equation, finding its integral.

   To solve the problem, first integrate both sides of the equation.

   She integrated the polynomial term by term to get the answer.

   Oppositedifferentiate

   Note

   Where the accumulating sense is about what a quantity adds up to, here the object is the expression itself: you integrate sinⁿ x, a polynomial, or both sides of an equation. Without limits the result is an antiderivative; with limits it is a definite integral. Mathematicians speak of what they know how to integrate, as though each function called for its own technique.

7. 7
   verbtransitive

   To form separate parts into one whole; to make something entire and complete.

   The composer integrated folk melodies into a single unified symphony.

   A skilled editor can integrate scattered chapters into a coherent book.

   Similarcombine, merge, unify, blend, consolidate

   Oppositeseparate, divide

   Note

   The oldest idea in the word lives here. Latin integrō meant "to make whole, renew, repair, begin again," which is why restore and renew sit beside complete in this sense. Modern use is often figurative. Someone recovering from long pain may be said to have integrated the broken pieces of her life, making a working whole again from what was shattered.

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