habilitate

[huh-bil-i-teyt]

verb (used with object)

habilitated, habilitating 

1. to clothe or dress.

2. to make fit.

verb (used without object)

habilitated, habilitating 

1. to become fit.

2. (in European and other educational systems) to qualify as professor or instructor after having earned one’s doctorate.

habilitate

/ həˈbɪlɪˌteɪt /

verb

1. (tr) to equip and finance (a mine)

2. (intr) to qualify for office

3. archaic,  (tr) to clothe

Other Word Forms

• habilitator noun
• habilitation noun
• habilitative adjective

Word History and Origins

Origin of habilitate¹

First recorded in 1595–1605; from Medieval Latin habilitātus, past participle of habilitāre “to make fit”; ability, -ate ¹

Word History and Origins

Origin of habilitate¹

C17: from Medieval Latin habilitāre to make fit, from Latin habilitās aptness, readiness; see _ability

Example Sentences

The tents put up in the square have not endured the rain very well but the town hall and school have also been habilitated.

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Morrison was habilitated in his usual full dress—that is, in his shirt-sleeves, unbuttoned vest, a collarless shirt flecked with irregular, yellowish dots, and a glowing diamond.

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A century may be all too short for the gigantic task of habilitating a Russian people—making the heterogeneous homogeneous, and converting an undeveloped peasantry into a capable citizenship.

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A nation thus constituted could not habilitate slavery with all the hideous features it wore in Virginia and Massachusetts.

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It is by this noble slowness that the highest minds faintly emulate that inconceivable deliberateness and delicacy of gradation with which solar systems are built and worlds habilitated.

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Related Words

• attire 
• bundle up 
• cloak 
• disguise 
• do up 
• drape 
• dress 
• dress up 
• equip 
• fit 
• swaddle 
• swathe