interrogate
Americanverb (used with object)
-
interrogates,
present (3rd person singular)
-
interrogated,
past participle, past
-
interrogating
present participle
-
to ask questions of (a person), sometimes to seek answers or information that the person questioned considers personal or secret.
- Synonyms:
- query
-
to examine by questions; question formally.
The police captain interrogated the suspect.
-
to analyze (an idea or belief), especially by thoroughly and dispassionately questioning its underlying assumptions.
The antiwork movement seeks to interrogate the concept of work as we know it today.
verb (used without object)
-
interrogates,
present (3rd person singular)
-
interrogated,
past participle, past
-
interrogating
present participle
verb
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
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interrogeenoun
-
reinterrogateverb
-
interrogableadjective
-
uninterrogableadjective
-
uninterrogatedadjective
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interrogatinglyadverb
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
-
interrogatesimple
-
interrogatessimple
-
have interrogatedperfect
-
has interrogatedperfect
-
am interrogatingprogressive
-
are interrogatingprogressive
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is interrogatingprogressive
-
have been interrogatingperfect progressive
-
has been interrogatingperfect progressive
Past
-
interrogatedsimple
-
had interrogatedperfect
-
was interrogatingprogressive
-
were interrogatingprogressive
-
had been interrogatingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of interrogate
First recorded in 1475–85; from Latin interrogātus, past participle of interrogāre “to question, examine,” equivalent to inter- “between, among, together” + rogā(re) “to ask” + -tus past participle suffix; see inter-
Explanation
To interrogate is to ask someone a bunch of questions. Usually, it’s the police, FBI, or other law-enforcement officials who interrogate suspects, but your father-in-law may interrogate you about your career plans. Interrogate comes from the Latin prefix inter-, “between” added to the Latin verb rogare, “to ask.” To interrogate someone is not just asking a few polite questions over a cup of tea. When you interrogate someone there is usually a method to the questioning with a specific mission in mind, like determining a criminal's motive or where she stashed the loot. Your college entrance interview may feel like an interrogation, but their mission is really just to get to know you.
Vocabulary lists containing interrogate
"The Odyssey" by Homer, Books 1–7
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For Grilled Cheese Day, Vocab with a Twist
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Instead of "Said": Words for Asking and Offering
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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:
"Defectors are the main source of information about the North," said Fyodor Tertitsky, lecturer at Seoul's Korea University, noting both South Korean intelligence and researchers interrogate them.
From Barron's ● Sep. 28, 2026
Did ordinary people really want to interrogate Thanksgiving like this?
From Slate ● Aug. 17, 2026
Teaming them up as a testy odd couple allows “Lanterns” to both highlight Hal’s insecurity and use the Green Lantern universe’s rules to interrogate systemic imbalances.
From Salon ● Aug. 14, 2026
They view location data from cell tower logs and interrogate Gazan detainees to uncover who did what.
From The Wall Street Journal ● May 21, 2026
He had no idea how he’d had the energy to interrogate Andrew only a minute before.
From "The Book of Dust: La Belle Sauvage" by Philip Pullman
One day scholars will teach Lepore’s work alongside Arendt’s, seeing that Lepore interrogates not simply a modern moment, but traces our current machine age back to the 17th-century conceit for artifice as improvement.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 31, 2026
In “Willing and Able,” he interrogates his motivation as an artist, and whether he exploits those close to him for material—“And I’ll see you again in six months, when you need your next song.”
From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 28, 2026
Nevertheless, “Devil in Disguise” interrogates the police’s tendency to mischaracterize his victims, fueling the media and the public’s subsequent rush to cast the dead as somehow deserving of their fate.
From Salon ● Oct. 29, 2025
The U-M team sorts and interrogates recycled pacemakers, only reconditioning those that have more than four years of battery life.
From Science Daily ● Nov. 20, 2024
It is a young girl who thus strangely interrogates, a beautiful girl, woman grown, of tall stature, with bright face, and a wealth of hair, golden hued.
From Gwen Wynn by Mayne Reid
She was interrogated, accused of being a spy, stripped of her security clearance and sent back to her unit in Guildford, where she was put on laundry duty.
From BBC ● Jun. 22, 2026
Once in El Salvador, the crewmen of the Don Maca say they were interrogated, denied they were traffickers, and, eventually, were allowed to contact their families and leave for home.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 15, 2026
Security agents interrogated people suspected of participating in its activities.
From The Wall Street Journal ● May 19, 2026
Martina’s brother told Ahmad that she’d been interrogated by the FBI, that their address had been broadcast on the news, and that Martina had taken their girls to a safe place.
From Slate ● Apr. 19, 2026
Both North and South Vietnam interrogated prisoners in an attempt to gain military information.
From "Boots on the Ground: America's War in Vietnam" by Elizabeth Partridge
"Ask some open questions, instead of interrogating them," he says.
From BBC ● Aug. 30, 2026
And if the conventional wisdom about a candidate is a lot friendlier on that platform than on a competitor’s, I’d spend some extra time interrogating why that might be happening.
From Slate ● Jul. 14, 2026
By guiding and interrogating the AI programmer, I created an application called RetireLab.
From The Wall Street Journal ● May 31, 2026
Katie’s journey towards a fully autonomous adulthood is their way of interrogating that, making her story as central to “Rooster” as Greg’s reinvention.
From Salon ● May 11, 2026
And one of the best ways to find out about moles was by interrogating a high-level defector like Yurchenko.
From "Spies: The Secret Showdown Between America and Russia" by Marc Favreau
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.
