inhabit
Americanverb (used with object)
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inhabits,
present (3rd person singular)
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inhabited,
past participle, past
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inhabiting
present participle
verb (used without object)
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inhabits,
present (3rd person singular)
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inhabited,
past participle, past
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inhabiting
present participle
verb
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(tr) to live or dwell in; occupy
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archaic (intr) to abide or dwell
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
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inhabitabilitynoun
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inhabitationnoun
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preinhabitationnoun
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preinhabitverb (used with object)
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reinhabitverb (used with object)
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inhabitableadjective
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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inhabitsimple
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inhabitssimple
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have inhabitedperfect
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has inhabitedperfect
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am inhabitingprogressive
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are inhabitingprogressive
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is inhabitingprogressive
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have been inhabitingperfect progressive
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has been inhabitingperfect progressive
Past
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inhabitedsimple
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had inhabitedperfect
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was inhabitingprogressive
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were inhabitingprogressive
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had been inhabitingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of inhabit
First recorded in 1325–75; from Latin inhabitāre, equivalent to in- in- 2 + habitāre “to dwell” ( see habit 2); replacing Middle English enhabiten, from Middle French enhabiter, from Latin as above
Explanation
When you inhabit a place, you live there. When actors inhabit their roles, they seem to become the characters, no longer actors reciting their lines. It is like they live the life of the character. The verb inhabit comes from the Old French enhabiter, meaning “dwell in.” You can inhabit an actual place, like a home, a cave, or a neighborhood. You can also inhabit an imaginary world, like those who choose to inhabit cyberspace with a made-up persona, telling about experiences that are nothing like the person's real life. Actors who truly inhabit their roles sometimes struggle to return to reality after a movie or television show wraps.
Vocabulary lists containing inhabit
"The Crucible" -- Vocabulary from all 4 Acts
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"The Crucible" -- Vocabulary from Act 1
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List 2
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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:
Watching “That Thing You Do!” climbing the charts throughout the movie is a peek into an alien musical world, one that was both more regional and more monocultural than the one we inhabit today.
From Salon ● Oct. 4, 2026
While they may inhabit a different world than the rest of us in other respects, they live and die along with the rest of the investment world when it comes to investing.
From MarketWatch ● Sep. 24, 2026
Seventeen other penguin species live across the Southern Hemisphere, and many inhabit isolated islands that are difficult for scientists to reach and study.
From Science Daily ● Sep. 22, 2026
For Griffin, it illuminated the way Lynch came to inhabit the city he called home for more than half a century.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 3, 2026
We ourselves inhabit some lost corner of one.
From "Cosmos" by Carl Sagan
One occurs mainly in China, while the other inhabits the Himalayan foothills across parts of Nepal, India, Bhutan, and Myanmar.
From Science Daily ● Aug. 26, 2026
But Seemiller argues that’s no longer the landscape Gen Z inhabits.
From Salon ● Aug. 15, 2026
“Whatever one’s interpretation of the relationships that she inhabits within the story, her influence was substantial,” Haig adds.
From Los Angeles Times ● May 29, 2026
This is one smart, encompassing album about the world this talented singer-songwriter inhabits.
From The Wall Street Journal ● May 20, 2026
Looming above them was a fully occupied wolf costume of the sort where one person inhabits the head of the wolf and another works the hind end.
From "The Incorrigible Children of Ashton Place: Book I: The Mysterious Howling" by Maryrose Wood
From 1948 to 1974, as gatekeeper at Airlie Gardens, Evans inhabited a neoclassical Eden where, locally celebrated, she made and sold her work.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 30, 2026
The area where it wants to walk is largely Catholic, and predominantly inhabited by pro-Irish nationalists.
From BBC ● Sep. 27, 2026
He insisted the targeted building was inhabited by "peaceful people with no connection to anyone".
From Barron's ● Sep. 7, 2026
“Insidious” once seemed energized by its exploration of a land inhabited by the luckless dead.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 21, 2026
The afternoon brought the tour to the Aquinnah lighthouse, in an area the guide explained was first inhabited by the Wampanoag Tribe of Gay Head and later, in the 1600s, by English colonists as well.
From "Genuine Fraud" by E. Lockhart
"He was inhabiting the music through his whole body."
From BBC ● Aug. 11, 2026
The fossils indicate that the birds inhabiting New Zealand a million years ago were substantially different from those present when people eventually arrived.
From Science Daily ● Jun. 23, 2026
When the nefarious Pilkington Industries repossesses Manor Farm after a failure to make payments, the animals inhabiting the stead are nearly trucked off to their demise.
From Salon ● May 3, 2026
By 1956 the father of two sons had developed the “mystic conviction that he was inhabiting the wrong body.”
From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 23, 2026
There are times when I wonder whether brothers and sisters are, in fact, the ones who sense that something is off with whatever person I’m inhabiting, and move to take advantage.
From "Every Day" by David Levithan
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.
