irrigate
Americanverb (used with object)
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to supply (land) with water by artificial means, as by diverting streams, flooding, or spraying.
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Medicine/Medical. to supply or wash (an orifice, wound, etc.) with a spray or a flow of some liquid.
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to moisten; wet.
verb
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to supply (land) with water by means of artificial canals, ditches, etc, esp to promote the growth of food crops
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med to bathe or wash out a bodily part, cavity, or wound
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(tr) to make fertile, fresh, or vital by or as if by watering
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of irrigate
1605–15; < Latin irrigātus, past participle of irrigāre to wet, flood, nourish with water, equivalent to ir- ir- 1 + rigā- (stem of rigāre to provide with water, soak) + -tus past participle suffix
Explanation
To irrigate is to supply with water, usually with ditches and channels that allow the water to flow. Irrigating is a type of watering that is important in one field in particular: farming. If a farmer has a huge number of crops, you can see how getting water to them could be difficult. The farmer irrigates by digging little channels that allow hard-to-reach spots to receive water. If there is a drought, irrigating will have to happen often to save the crops. People with large gardens might need to irrigate as well. Irrigating waters plants, keeping them alive.
Vocabulary lists containing irrigate
Civilizations and Peoples of the Fertile Crescent, Lessons 1–2
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Chapter 1: The First Americans
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Unit 1: Ecological Systems
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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 Andes mountains, with their winter snow and glaciers, feed the rivers and streams that flow into the valley to irrigate our crops," she explains.
From BBC • Apr. 10, 2026
With practically no fuel left, he is finding it ever harder to harvest and irrigate his crops, relying for power mainly on a solar panel provided by the state.
From Barron's • Feb. 17, 2026
It was in that position, in the early aughts, that Bonham first became immersed in the fierce disagreement over what to do with scarce water in the Klamath Basin — irrigate farms or protect salmon.
From Los Angeles Times • Dec. 30, 2025
But syrup producers do not plant, irrigate, fertilize or use insecticides on their self-sufficient forests.
From The Wall Street Journal • Dec. 24, 2025
A single canal system could carry enough water to irrigate an estimated ten thousand acres.
From "An Indigenous People’s History of the United States" by Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz
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.
