locate
Formslocates, locating, located
- 1To discover the exact place where something or someone is.
Investigators used phone records to locate the suspect's last known position.
The app helps drivers locate available parking spaces nearby.
UsageOften negative, can't locate. Compare be located (be in a place): you locate the hotel; it is located downtown.
Similarfind, pinpoint, trace, track, discover
Note
A turn from putting to finding: the "place" meaning puts a thing somewhere, while this one works out where it already is. Both can share a sentence, since once you locate the files, you know where they are located. It suits searches with a target, like a telescope locating exoplanet candidates or a grapevine failing to locate a lone criminal's moll.
- 2To put or set something in a particular spot or position.
The architect chose to locate the entrance on the south side of the building.
Planners located the reservoir in the valley behind the new dam.
UsageVery often passive, be located in, at or near a place: the office is located in Chicago.
Similarplace, position, site, situate, put
Note
The physical, deliberate sense: a planner locates a school near the homes it serves, and a builder locates a door on the south wall. Business prose stretches it to things with no position at all, as when a company locates intellectual property in a low-tax country and licenses it to sister firms elsewhere.
- 3
- 4Of a building, town, business, object, or part of something: to occupy a particular place, usually in the passive (be located).
The company's main office is located in downtown Chicago, two blocks from the train station.
The town, located at the mouth of the river, grew rich on trade.
Similarsituate, base, site, place
Note
Grammatically passive but describing a state, not an action: nobody is doing the placing. The usual frame is be located followed by in, at, on or near, and the bare participle often follows a noun on its own (a town located on the coast). The active form belongs to the "to place" meaning, where someone actually sets a thing in position.
Less common meaning
- 5To designate the site of something or define its limits, a designation that may be purely descriptive rather than a formal prescription.
Practice
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Origin
Borrowed from Latin locātus, the past participle of locō ("to place"), from locus ("place"). It is related to French louer, and to the words local and lieu.
Checked 5 Nov 2026 · 6 facts
- Locate was borrowed from Latin locātus. en.wiktionary.org
- Locātus is the past participle of locō, meaning to place. en.wiktionary.org
- Locō derives from locus, meaning place. en.wiktionary.org
- Locate is related to French louer in its renting sense, which also derives from Latin locāre. en.wiktionary.org
- Local shares the Latin root locus. en.wiktionary.org
- Lieu shares the Latin root locus. en.wiktionary.org