locate
Americanverb (used with object)
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locates,
present (3rd person singular)
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located,
past participle, past
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locating
present participle
-
to identify or discover the place or location of.
to locate the bullet wound.
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to set, fix, or establish in a position, situation, or locality; place; settle.
to locate our European office in Paris.
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to assign or ascribe a particular location to (something), as by knowledge or opinion.
Some scholars locate the Garden of Eden in Babylonia.
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to survey and enter a claim to a tract of land; take possession of land.
verb (used without object)
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locates,
present (3rd person singular)
-
located,
past participle, past
-
locating
present participle
verb
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(tr) to discover the position, situation, or whereabouts of; find
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(tr; often passive) to situate or place
located on the edge of the city
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(intr) to become established or settled
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
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locaternoun
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prelocateverb
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interlocateverb (used with object)
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locatableadjective
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self-locatingadjective
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unlocatedadjective
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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locatesimple
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locatessimple
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have locatedperfect
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has locatedperfect
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am locatingprogressive
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are locatingprogressive
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is locatingprogressive
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have been locatingperfect progressive
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has been locatingperfect progressive
Past
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locatedsimple
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had locatedperfect
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was locatingprogressive
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were locatingprogressive
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had been locatingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of locate
An Americanism first recorded in 1645–55; from Latin locātus “placed,” past participle of locāre “to put in a given position, place,” verb derivative of locus “a place”; see locus
Explanation
If you wanted to decide where to locate your car wash, you might locate a spot on a map with lots of traffic, a parking lot, and a ready source of water. Locate means to find or place. If your mother can never locate her keys, it means she loses them all of the time and has to look all around the house before going out. If you move to a new place, usually for a job, you relocate. But if you decide to find a job that is located in your town, you call that staying local, which, like locate, derives from the Latin locus meaning "place."
Vocabulary lists containing locate
Jim Burke's Academic Vocabulary List
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Vocabulary of the Common Core
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Academic Vocabulary Toolkit 1, Words 51-60
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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:
Their findings, published in Communications Earth & Environment, could also help researchers locate geothermal reservoirs, lithium deposits, and rare earth elements connected to deep magmatic activity.
From Science Daily ● Aug. 5, 2026
Some schools are hiring archivists to locate those letters and re-evaluate the terms of gifts.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 3, 2026
"The joint rescue operation is still underway to locate and recover the remaining trapped miners," it added, without specifying how many were in the mine when the explosion took place.
From Barron's ● Jul. 31, 2026
More than likely, Fidelity hired a firm to locate potential heirs or people connected to your former sister-in-law’s account or simply to verify her death before proceeding with the account.
From MarketWatch ● Jul. 31, 2026
It wasn’t a residence, so she’d never looked there for sleepers, and it took her a few minutes to locate the right wing.
From "Strange the Dreamer" by Laini Taylor
Osaka locates that intersection at tennis tournaments worldwide, looks both ways and boldly steps into the street.
From Los Angeles Times ● May 28, 2026
When a store puts in an order, a robot locates the correct bin, grabs the tote using extendable metal arms and carries it to a glass elevator that delivers the item to a human.
From The Wall Street Journal ● May 1, 2026
Ms Wall locates the former burial sites using press images, local stories and flowers left on posts but said she had learnt to identify “very clear signs”.
From BBC ● Aug. 17, 2024
He still lives in Seattle, consults for transportation clients, and joined the board of a company that locates underground utility obstacles, like those which delayed the new Tacoma Link Hilltop Extension streetcar.
From Seattle Times ● May 21, 2024
Once he locates one, he sits down at the table in the kitchen to write a note to his parents.
From "The Night Circus" by Erin Morgenstern
Its mass is comparable to that of the supermassive black hole located at the center of the Milky Way.
From Science Daily ● Aug. 6, 2026
Unlike condos and co-ops, the townhouse offers “privacy, scale, and authentic architectural grace” that is rare in homes located in multiunit buildings, it continued.
From MarketWatch ● Aug. 6, 2026
Both had suffered severe damage to the superstructure, where the bridge and crew quarters are located.
From BBC ● Aug. 6, 2026
And to finish off the at-bat, he located a sinker at the bottom of the zone for a called strike three.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 5, 2026
The family believed they had located the particular grave.
From "The Hiding Place" by Corrie ten Boom
Worse, locating and identifying people who have been in contact with Ebola patients is a tedious and frequently dangerous task.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 6, 2026
“Thick tree cover made it difficult for the helicopter crew to see through the canopy, adding another challenge to locating the victim,” officials stated in a post on Facebook.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 5, 2026
Coast Guard suspended its active search based on the extensive efforts already conducted and the dwindling probability of locating a survivor.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 16, 2026
United States, a 2018 case involving cellphone tower locating data, Chatrie made clear that the third-party doctrine just doesn’t make sense when it comes to smartphone data privacy.
From Slate ● Jul. 1, 2026
They had difficulty in locating the sister, Catherine.
From " The Great Gatsby" by F. Scott Fitzgerald
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.
