designate
Americanverb (used with object)
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to mark or point out; indicate; show; specify.
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to denote; indicate; signify.
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to name; entitle; style.
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to nominate or select for a duty, office, purpose, etc.; appoint; assign.
adjective
verb
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to indicate or specify
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to give a name to; style; entitle
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to select or name for an office or duty; appoint
adjective
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
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designatornoun
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dedesignateverb (used with object)
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redesignateverb (used with object)
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designativeadjective
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designatoryadjective
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nondesignateadjective
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nondesignativeadjective
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undesignatedadjective
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undesignativeadjective
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well-designatedadjective
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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designatesimple
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designatessimple
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have designatedperfect
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has designatedperfect
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am designatingprogressive
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are designatingprogressive
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is designatingprogressive
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have been designatingperfect progressive
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has been designatingperfect progressive
Past
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designatedsimple
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had designatedperfect
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was designatingprogressive
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were designatingprogressive
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had been designatingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of designate
1640–50; < Latin dēsignātus, past participle of dēsignāre. See design, -ate 1
Explanation
To designate is to give something a specific status. If you designate your house an opera-free zone, it means that you've officially declared that no opera is allowed to be played there. To give a person or thing an official status is to designate it as something, like when you designate a meeting place if members of your group get lost at the amusement park. Sometimes, it can carry responsibility or an assignment, like when your teammates designate you as the captain. It can also show a category, like when you designate certain books to the humor section of the bookstore where you work.
Vocabulary lists containing designate
Baseball: A Lexicon
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Number the Stars
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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:
As the former head of the State Department’s office that recommended to the secretary of state which groups to designate, I’ve been involved in the designations of hundreds of individuals and organizations.
From Salon ● Jul. 23, 2026
For clients who like to pick stocks, advisers may designate a “play money” bucket.
From MarketWatch ● Jul. 13, 2026
“After thoughtful discussions, the City of West Hollywood, the WeHo Pride production team, and Kathy Hilton have determined that the 2026 WeHo Pride Parade will not designate a Grand Marshal Icon honoree,” read the statement.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 4, 2026
The family’s attempt to designate 36 grandchildren as beneficiaries was rejected due to issues with a spousal waiver.
From The Wall Street Journal ● May 15, 2026
The war, which until then had been only a word to designate a vague and remote circumstance, became a concrete and dramatic reality.
From "One Hundred Years of Solitude" by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
As a terrorism scholar who spent a decade running the State Department office that designates terrorist organizations, I understand their confusion.
From Salon ● Jul. 23, 2026
The case stems from a broader legal dispute over the renaming of the cultural institution, which US law designates as a memorial to President John F Kennedy.
From BBC ● Jun. 13, 2026
The Five-Year Plan designates quantum as one of seven frontier technologies, with coordinated commercialization efforts focused on a smaller set of institutions.
From Barron's ● Apr. 14, 2026
Most of these retirements are located in regions of the country the North American Electric Reliability Corporation designates as having an “elevated risk” of electricity shortages.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Feb. 3, 2026
Goss used the pronoun that designates a male animal, not the pronoun for a human being in the masculine role of kemmer.
From "The Left Hand of Darkness" by Ursula K. Le Guin
TPS provides protection from deportation for people from countries designated as unsafe because of war, natural disasters or other extraordinary circumstances.
From Barron's ● Jul. 27, 2026
Doom Scroll: Disney is the happiest place on Earth, unless you’re the designated scroller.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 26, 2026
The U.S. has held off on blacklisting CXMT, according to Reuters, though the company has been designated as a national-security risk and approved for the Commerce Department’s Entity List.
From MarketWatch ● Jul. 24, 2026
The MLS said Matuidi had been paid more than was allowed, effectively giving the team four "designated players" last season rather than the permitted three.
From BBC ● Jul. 22, 2026
It was arranged for the Laughing Man to meet the Dufarges at midnight in a designated section of the dense forest surrounding Paris, and there, by moonlight, Black Wing would be set free.
From "Nine Stories" by J. D. Salinger
Her letter also called for the government to consider designating Heyford Park and its surrounding area as a priority monitoring site for the chemicals - known as PFAS.
From BBC ● Jun. 25, 2026
You can do this by designating a child as an authorized user, which is a person added to a credit-card account by the primary cardholder, although some issuers have age minimums as low as 13.
From MarketWatch ● Jun. 9, 2026
The Pentagon on Monday updated its list of Chinese businesses the U.S. has identified as aiding Beijing’s military, designating around two dozen new companies, including tech giants Alibaba and Baidu, limiting their operations in America.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 8, 2026
Beyond that, they were also beloved by critics and audiences alike, with “WALL-E” deservedly earning a spot in the Criterion Collection in 2022, designating the film as a significant work within the medium of cinema.
From Salon ● Jun. 6, 2026
Most of the gold imprint designating whether a given piece was a bishop, king, queen, or whatever had, from years of use, worn off.
From "Endgame" by Frank Brady
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.
