DictionaryAI

participate

USpar-TIS-uh-payt/pɑɹˈtɪsəˌpeɪt/UKpah-TIS-i-payt/pɑːˈtɪsɪpeɪt/
As an adjectivepar-TIS-uh-puht

Formsparticipates, participating, participated

4 meanings of participate

Practice

  1. 1
    verbintransitive
    To take part in an activity or event, involving yourself together with others.

    Local residents participate in cleaning up the river every spring.

    Only members who participate regularly are eligible to vote.

    Similarengage, contribute, join

    Oppositeabstain

    Note

    The living sense of the verb, and an intransitive one: what you join is introduced by in, as in participate in a race, a vote or a celebration. It comes from Latin participō, "to take part in, share in," built on particeps, "taking part, sharing." English once let the verb take its object directly, as in the obsolete "share in" sense. Today the preposition is required.

  2. 2
    verbobsoletetransitive
    To share in or partake of something, taking part in it directly.
    A spirit I am indeed; But am in that dimension grossly clad Which from the womb I did participate.
    c. 1601, William Shakespeare, “Twelfe Night, or What You Will”
    In what country on the globe is it, that in the class of mankind doomed to labour, we shall not find tribes, the women of which participate the toils of the men?
    1803, Robert Charles Dallas, The History of the Maroons
    Note

    Here the verb takes the thing shared as a direct object, with no preposition between them. Shakespeare's Twelfth Night speaks of the body "which from the womb I did participate," and Charlotte Smith's Desmond (1792) wants companions who "can participate his pleasure"; Robert Charles Dallas still writes it in 1803. Today it reads as a mistake. Say participate in, the construction of the everyday "take part" verb.

  3. 3
    verbobsolete
    To share something out among others, or to hand it over or transfer it to them.
    Note

    The giving side of the Latin verb survives here, because participō meant "give part in, impart" as well as "take part in." The subject hands a share outward, to or unto others, instead of taking one, which reverses the obsolete "share in" sense. The use is obsolete. A modern writer who wants this meaning would say impart, or share something with someone.

Less common meaning

  1. 4
    adjectiveobsolete
    Acting in common with others; sharing or taking part jointly.
    And, mutually participate, did minister Unto the appetite and affection common Of the whole body.
    c. 1608, William Shakespeare, “The Tragedy of Coriolanus”
    Note

    An adjective spelled exactly like the verb. Its -ate is the adjective-forming suffix, which echoes Latin participātus, the participle behind the everyday verb. Shakespeare uses it in Coriolanus, where the parts of the body, "mutually participate, did minister / Unto the appetite." It is obsolete and not comparable. Today the participle participating does this work.

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Origin

This word was borrowed from Latin participātus, from the verb participō ("to take part in, share in"). That came from particeps ("someone who takes part, sharing in"), formed from pars ("part") plus -ceps ("which takes, taker"), literally "someone who takes part." Old English had an earlier calque of the same Latin verb, dǣlniman ("to participate").