equipment
Americannoun
-
equipment
plural
-
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
-
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.
For example, a mature software company may have very wide profit margins, while an industry requiring heavy capital investment, such as industrial equipment, will likely have lower profit margins.
From MarketWatch ● Nov. 11, 2026
Additional emissions can also occur when older equipment, materials, and landfill waste release chemicals that were manufactured years ago.
From Science Daily ● Nov. 11, 2026
SoftBank Group reported a $3.7 billion hit to its earnings, largely because of canceled reservations on power-generation equipment, the WSJ’s Eliot Brown and Anissa Gardizy report.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Nov. 11, 2026
Coast Guard said Tuesday morning that it had ended its extensive search of a 95-square-mile area using using motor life boats, helicopters and other equipment.
From Los Angeles Times ● Nov. 10, 2026
I nodded and stayed close behind him as he shouldered his way through the crowd, our progress slowed by the rows of sewing equipment that had been shoved to the floor.
From "Glitch" by Laura Martin
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Get a wordDefinitions 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.
