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.
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
See furnish.
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)”
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.
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Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
A year later, the Justice Department awarded more than $20 million in grants to equip departments across the country.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 28, 2026
This week she has been calling for a nationwide "plan clim'" to equip all schools and hospitals with air-conditioning.
From BBC ● Jun. 24, 2026
Siemens Energy will equip the platform with transmission technology, most from its German factories.
From Barron's ● Jun. 17, 2026
A Boeing missile-parts factory expansion, for instance, took more than two years to build and equip.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 9, 2026
After their first meeting, Descartes wrote of him: “I could not believe that a single mind could occupy itself with so many things, and equip itself so well in all of them.”
From "Cosmos" by Carl Sagan
“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
UPS equips Reyez with hats, sleeves and towels made with cooling technologies developed by Mission, a brand that also supplies the fabrics to professional sports teams and athletes.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 3, 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
He to whom the arm of the Lord is re- vealed; to whom divine Science unfolds omnipotence, that equips man with divine power while it shames human pride.
From Miscellaneous Writings, 1883-1896 by Eddy, Mary Baker
It says China's chemical industry is "massive", with 160,000 companies, and despite steps by authorities to implement controls, oversight is "insufficiently staffed and equipped".
From BBC ● Jul. 13, 2026
Due to its illustrious past, the home has been equipped with impressive security systems, including an alarm and cameras.
From MarketWatch ● Jul. 13, 2026
LA28 plans to use nearly all of the soundstages, which are equipped with dedicated set lighting power, high-capacity silent air conditioning, high-speed wired and wireless internet, and adjoining production suites.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 9, 2026
The new plane was rapidly retrofitted and equipped with security features before making its first flight with Trump on July 1.
From Barron's ● Jul. 8, 2026
I am equipped with a great memory, but even still, I worry that I will forget it somehow.
From "A Rover's Story" by Jasmine Warga
“SPLC remains committed to exposing extremism, equipping the public with knowledge and defending the rights and safety of marginalized communities,” a spokesman for the organization said.
From The Wall Street Journal ● May 15, 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
CoreWeave is perhaps the leading name among the so-called neoclouds, which are young, nimble companies rapidly equipping AI and cloud data centers for hyperscalers and other customers.
From Barron's ● Mar. 31, 2026
The Institute for the Study of War warned in mid-January that since Russia had begun equipping the cheap kamikaze Molniya-2 drones with Starlink, their battlefield efficiency had increased "dramatically".
From BBC ● Feb. 2, 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.
