equipment
Americannoun
-
anything kept, furnished, or provided for a specific purpose.
- Synonyms:
- accouterment, paraphernalia, apparatus
-
the act of equipping a person or thing.
-
the state of being equipped.
-
the personal knowledge and skill required for a task, occupation, etc..
He has the necessary equipment for law.
-
the rolling stock of a railroad.
noun
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an act or instance of equipping
-
the items so provided
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a set of tools, devices, kit, etc, assembled for a specific purpose, such as a soldier's kit and weapons
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of equipment
Explanation
A motherboard and a graphics processor? Duct tape? A circular saw? A solar panel? Depending on what you’re up to, all these things can be considered equipment, which is whatever you need to complete a task. Right away you probably notice that a big chunk of the word equipment is made up of another word, the common verb equip — meaning "to provide someone with the tools they need for a specific task." Add equip to -ment (the suffix of choice when you want to turn a verb into a noun) and voilà! Like magic, the verb changes into a noun, and you end up with equipment: the materials you get when you are equipped to do a particular thing.
Vocabulary lists containing equipment
"Earthquake"
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Cormac McCarthy's "The Road"
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Scientific Investigation and Reasoning
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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.
The reserve has experienced 16 major equipment failures since 2013, including of raw water and brine disposal piping.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 13, 2026
She has now secured at least £12.5 million for a Music in Libraries initiative - co-designed by Sheeran - which will pay for recording booths, mixing desks and other equipment.
From BBC ● Jul. 13, 2026
Hardware, memory, power equipment, utilities and grid modernization — areas all tied to the data-center buildout needed for AI — are among the other sectors that have benefited as demand has outstripped supply, said Almeida.
From MarketWatch ● Jul. 12, 2026
In a written response addressed to the commission, a PG&E official said the pole and equipment “were not involved in the ignition” of the Mosquito fire.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 12, 2026
Simultaneously, a second Japanese formation raids Iba Field, forty miles west of Clark, knocking out a squadron of planes and destroying equipment.
From "At Last She Stood" by Erin Entrada Kelly
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.
