equip
verb (used with object)
to supply with whatever gear or apparatus is needed for use or for any undertaking; fit out, as a ship or army.
equip
1 American
[ih-kwip]
/ ɪˈkwɪp /
verb (used with object)
-
equips,
present (3rd person singular)
-
equipped,
past participle, past
-
equipping
present participle
-
to supply with whatever gear or apparatus is needed for use or for any undertaking; fit out, as a ship or army.
They spent several thousand dollars to equip their boat.
-
to provide with intellectual or emotional resources; prepare.
Education and travel have equipped her to deal with all sorts of people.
-
to dress; array.
He equipped himself in all his finery.
equip.
2
American
abbreviation
equip
British
/ ɪˈkwɪp /
verb
-
to furnish with (necessary supplies, etc)
-
(usually passive) to provide with abilities, understanding, etc
her son was never equipped to be a scholar
-
to dress out; attire
Synonym Usage
See furnish.
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
-
equipsimple
-
equipssimple
-
have equippedperfect
-
has equippedperfect
-
am equippingprogressive
-
are equippingprogressive
-
is equippingprogressive
-
have been equippingperfect progressive
-
has been equippingperfect progressive
Past
-
equippedsimple
-
had equippedperfect
-
was equippingprogressive
-
were equippingprogressive
-
had been equippingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of equip
First recorded in 1515–25; from Middle French equiper, Old French esquiper “to fit out, equip,” probably from Old Norse skipa “to put in order, arrange, man (a ship)”
Explanation
To equip means to provide something needed for a particular purpose. If you’re planning a trip to the Arctic, you should equip yourself with warm clothes, tents, and two-way radios. You might want to equip someone with an ice axe for ice climbing and a diving watch for underwater excursions. The ice axe or the diving watch is their equipment. Equip can also be used in a more figurative sense. If you are supposed to write computer programs but have never worked with a computer, you might say that you are not equipped for that. On a really bad day, it might feel like people are not equipped to deal with each other politely.
Vocabulary lists containing equip
Chapter 24: World War I
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President Obama's second inaugural address
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Vocabulary Review, Unit 6
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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:
One major goal for future research is to equip the microrobots with onboard cameras and sensors.
From Science Daily ● Sep. 22, 2026
Many of the companies he has worked at are also public, which could equip Polymarket to consider an IPO in the future.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 11, 2026
"The task now is to make them faster and equip them with specialised guidance systems so that they can shoot down jet-powered UAVs, the jet-powered Shaheds," he said.
From BBC ● Sep. 7, 2026
Immigration and Customs Enforcement is moving to equip officers with body cameras in the next two months, but the public should not expect to see footage of every critical incident.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 13, 2026
I knew what tools to equip them with because I’d been exactly where they were.
From "Proud" by Ibtihaj Muhammad
“But we can’t facilitate. We can educate. We can navigate. We can equip. We’ve got an entire educational library. July 1 didn’t just get here and go, ‘Okay, you figure this out.’
From Washington Post ● Jul. 22, 2021
The problem is simple: The models are being built faster than the science that equips us to understand their internal workings.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 13, 2026
Half of the Helios campus is leased to CoreWeave, which equips it, positioning Galaxy to capitalize on AI demand.
From Barron's ● Jun. 8, 2026
Washington leads PrEPHer, a program that equips Black, brown, and queer women with sexual health education and access to free HIV/STI self-testing kits.
From Salon ● Mar. 19, 2026
Bateman: What comedy equips you with is a comfort in playing flawed people.
From Los Angeles Times ● Mar. 10, 2026
The same faith that enables us to love and serve our Lord in heaven, equips us to love and serve the men of the remote parts of the earth.
From With God in the World A Series of Papers by Charles H. Brent
The satellites are equipped with matching sets of instruments that continuously gather information about the oceans, land, atmosphere, and cryosphere, which includes Earth's frozen regions.
From Science Daily ● Oct. 12, 2026
The kitchen is equally suited to the scale of the property and comes equipped with high-end appliances from Wolf and Miele.
From MarketWatch ● Oct. 12, 2026
“We are creating a business that will be more resilient, more accountable, and better equipped to earn and maintain our customers’ trust,” said Hiromitsu Tokumaru, president and chief executive officer of Prudential of Japan.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 9, 2026
"Passengers need to know what they are being charged and who is responsible for the pedicab they are riding in," she said, adding that vehicles should be equipped with meters displaying the cost of rides.
From Barron's ● Oct. 7, 2026
As long as he was well equipped and had a good crew, he was confident in his ability to pull off his plan.
From "Shipwreck at the Bottom of the World" by Jennifer Armstrong
"You have built resilience across our public services, businesses and communities, equipping us all to prosper in our ever-evolving digital world," the monarch added.
From BBC ● Oct. 10, 2026
Belgium is equipping its F-16s with specialized Thales rocket pods, giving the aircraft a cheaper and more effective option for countering large numbers of drones.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 8, 2026
Generative A.I. certainly has the potential to worsen pandemic conspiracy theories by equipping them with highly convincing fabricated evidence.
From Slate ● Aug. 26, 2026
The Riverside County Sheriff’s Department, meanwhile, became the first in California to employ the device, equipping two vehicles by mid-2025 and adding another eight vehicles six months later.
From Los Angeles Times ● May 7, 2026
Men were drilled in preparing their planes for impact and equipping themselves for postcrash survival.
From "Unbroken" by Laura Hillenbrand
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.
