articulated

American  

[ahr-tik-yuh-ley-tid] / ɑrˈtɪk yəˌleɪ tɪd /

adjective

1. made clear or distinct.

   articulated sounds.

2. having a joint or joints; jointed.

   an articulated appendage.

3. (of a vehicle) built in sections that are hinged or otherwise connected so as to allow flexibility of movement.

   an articulated bus; an articulated locomotive.

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Other Word Forms

• multiarticulated adjective
• unarticulated adjective
• well-articulated adjective

Etymology

Origin of articulated

First recorded in 1545–55; articulate + -ed ²

Explanation

Something is articulated if it's made of sections connected by joints. Articulated limbs have bones that bend where they join, at an elbow or a wrist for example. Human bodies are full of articulated sections, with joints at the knees, hips, shoulders, and so on. You can also describe an object as articulated if it's made up of pieces that connect in flexible segments. A long train can be composed of articulated cars. Articulated comes from the verb articulate, "to divide into distinct parts," from the Latin articulare, "separate into joints," and the Latin root articulus, "joint."

Example Sentences

That famous wording is itself a tell, a rhetorical device pointing to the fact that the emerging revolution’s values needed to be articulated in writing.

From Salon • Apr. 8, 2026

And Nasa has at last articulated a credible plan to build on this moment rather than wait three years and start again.

From BBC • Apr. 7, 2026

But he articulated things that hadn’t been part of the American grain, becoming his country’s poet laureate of nature and ethics and its hippie Founding Father.

From The Wall Street Journal • Mar. 26, 2026

Policymakers should also come out against opaque processes for obtaining tariff exemptions and rapid changes in tariff rates without an articulated framework.

From MarketWatch • Feb. 19, 2026

That switch altered the folding of the hemoglobin chain: rather than twisting into its neatly articulated, clasplike structure, the mutant hemoglobin protein accumulated in stringlike clumps within red cells.

From "The Gene" by Siddhartha Mukherjee

Related Words

• articulate
• choral
• operatic
• verbal