inculcate
Americanverb (used with object)
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inculcates,
present (3rd person singular)
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inculcated,
past participle, past
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inculcating
present participle
-
to implant by repeated statement or admonition; teach persistently and earnestly (usually followed by upon orin ).
to inculcate virtue in the young.
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to cause or influence (someone) to accept an idea or feeling (usually followed bywith ).
Socrates inculcated his pupils with the love of truth.
verb
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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inculcatesimple
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inculcatessimple
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have inculcatedperfect
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has inculcatedperfect
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am inculcatingprogressive
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are inculcatingprogressive
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is inculcatingprogressive
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have been inculcatingperfect progressive
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has been inculcatingperfect progressive
Past
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inculcatedsimple
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had inculcatedperfect
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was inculcatingprogressive
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were inculcatingprogressive
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had been inculcatingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of inculcate
First recorded in 1540–50; from Latin inculcātus, past participle of inculcāre “to trample, impress, stuff in,” equivalent to in- “in” + culc- (variant, in noninitial position, of calc-, stem of calx “heel”) + -ātus past participle suffix; see in- 2, -ate 1
Explanation
To inculcate is to teach through frequent instruction. If you repeatedly tell your brother how important it is to be responsible, then you’re trying to inculcate in him a sense of responsibility. The word inculcate traces back to the Latin word inculcare, meaning “to force upon or to stamp in.” If anyone has even tried to inculcate you with something, it may seem as if something is being stamped into your brain — over and over and over. A key thing to remember about this word is repetition: something, such as a value or a belief, is instilled in the brain by the persistent restating of its importance.
Vocabulary lists containing inculcate
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
To tell one’s beads regularly requires a measure of the discipline it is meant to inculcate.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jan. 8, 2026
"I think you need to try and inculcate people into an understanding of the structures of governance, how you can engage in those structures."
From BBC ● Jul. 11, 2025
As Sagan wrote in his 1985 novel Contact, an awareness of extraterrestrial life would serve to inculcate the “power of the planetary perspective.”
From Slate ● Jul. 24, 2023
It can be more difficult for employers to inculcate values and for workers to learn from one another.
From Washington Post ● Jan. 27, 2023
These are the qualities that welfare - to-work job-training programs often seek to inculcate, though I suspect that most welfare recipients already possess them, or would if their child care and transportation problems were solved.
From "Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America" by Barbara Ehrenreich
This year brought a late, travel-related cancellation from the gifted pianist Utsav Lal, who inculcates the Indian classical tradition into his accompaniment.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Nov. 17, 2025
Athletic contests are a schoolhouse of democracy that inculcates the habits of civic engagement necessary for a free people to thrive.
From Los Angeles Times ● Dec. 22, 2024
Despite being physically gone, Numa continues to narrate the course of the film, a deliberate storytelling choice by Bayona that inculcates the theme of consumption as a type of communion.
From Salon ● Jan. 23, 2024
“One of the things about recovery that I think people sometimes overlook is the fact that it inculcates certain values. Be honest. Be accountable. Help other people. Apologize when you’re wrong.”
From New York Times ● Feb. 18, 2020
But are slavery and war to endure for ever because we find them in the Bible? or are they to cease at once and for ever because the Bible inculcates peace and brotherhood?”
From The Impending Crisis of the South How to Meet It by Hinton Rowan Helper
We were inculcated with the importance of charity, love toward all, good works and humility, and urged to carry those virtues into adulthood.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 19, 2026
It’s a grisly, funny ritual in which they reveal the self-disgust that their menial jobs have inculcated in them.
From The Wall Street Journal ● May 28, 2026
For public defenders dedicated to the work, or coming into the field with the hypercompetitive spirit inculcated by some law schools, such setbacks can be devastating.
From Slate ● Jan. 4, 2023
Not just because it deals with homegrown American Nazism as inculcated at a camp run by the German American Bund in Yaphank, N.Y., from 1936 to 1941.
From New York Times ● Nov. 15, 2022
As the children of families that valued scholarly pursuits, Ernest and Merle both were inculcated with the virtues of study and knowledge from an early age.
From "Big Science" by Michael Hiltzik
Authorities also sent Tibetan children to state-run boarding schools at ever-younger ages, educating them predominantly in Mandarin and inculcating Chinese culture.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Mar. 12, 2026
“This is not about enforcing standards,” she said, “it’s about inculcating a particular value system within the officer corps.”
From Salon ● Sep. 30, 2025
It’s an irresistible ditty that starts by contrasting a text-to-speech voice inculcating on Isaac Newton with Pearce and musician Sharron Kraus singing about the sun’s mass.
From Scientific American ● May 27, 2022
How should they mediate the tensions between inculcating values of robust debate, on the one hand, and of disciplined civility on the other?
From Washington Post ● Apr. 30, 2021
Careful attention is given to inculcating habits of personal and general hygiene.
From Nurses' Papers on Tuberculosis : read before the Nurses' Study Circle of the Dispensary Department, Chicago Municipal Tuberculosis Sanitarium by Various
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
