manipulate
Americanverb (used with object)
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manipulates,
present (3rd person singular)
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manipulated,
past participle, past
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manipulating
present participle
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to manage or influence skillfully, especially in an unfair manner.
to manipulate people's feelings.
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to handle, manage, or use, especially with skill, in some process of treatment or performance.
to manipulate a large tractor.
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to adapt or change (accounts, figures, etc.) to suit one's purpose or advantage.
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Medicine/Medical. to examine or treat by skillful use of the hands, as in palpation, reduction of dislocations, or changing the position of a fetus.
verb
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(tr) to handle or use, esp with some skill, in a process or action
to manipulate a pair of scissors
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to negotiate, control, or influence (something or someone) cleverly, skilfully, or deviously
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to falsify (a bill, accounts, etc) for one's own advantage
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(in physiotherapy) to examine or treat manually, as in loosening a joint
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
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manipulabilitynoun
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manipulationnoun
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manipulatornoun
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outmanipulateverb (used with object)
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manipulatableadjective
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manipulativeadjective
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manipulatoryadjective
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nonmanipulativeadjective
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nonmanipulatoryadjective
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unmanipulatableadjective
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unmanipulatedadjective
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unmanipulativeadjective
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unmanipulatoryadjective
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manipulativelyadverb
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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manipulatesimple
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manipulatessimple
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have manipulatedperfect
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has manipulatedperfect
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am manipulatingprogressive
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are manipulatingprogressive
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is manipulatingprogressive
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have been manipulatingperfect progressive
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has been manipulatingperfect progressive
Past
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manipulatedsimple
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had manipulatedperfect
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was manipulatingprogressive
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were manipulatingprogressive
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had been manipulatingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of manipulate
First recorded in 1820–30; back formation from manipulation
Explanation
To manipulate something means to handle it skillfully, like the way a sculptor manipulates clay or a really good politician works a crowd. The verb manipulate evolved from manipulation, which back in the 1700s referred to a method of digging ore. So manipulating something originally only meant moving or arranging it by hand or mechanically. It wasn't until 1864 that people started using the word manipulate to describe someone exerting mental or emotional influence on others.
Vocabulary lists containing manipulate
Tier 2 Words for the SBAC ELA Items
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"There Will Come Soft Rains" by Ray Bradbury (1950)
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The Westing Game
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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:
"If she could build and manipulate the trust of adults across an entire community so effectively, think about how little power babies and young children had behind those closed doors."
From BBC ● Oct. 7, 2026
"Who are we allowing to feed into us and manipulate what media we consume, which bubbles we're in?" she continued.
From Barron's ● Oct. 7, 2026
Any attempt to manipulate atmospheric chemistry would require careful study to understand potential unintended effects.
From Science Daily ● Sep. 15, 2026
“This idea that cats are trying to manipulate us is a big pet peeve of mine,” he says.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 9, 2026
Evelyn tried to control people by controlling weapons, but Jeanine was more ambitious—she knew that when you control information, or manipulate it, you don’t need force to keep people under your thumb.
From "Allegiant" by Veronica Roth
Amazing the way he's gifted with the ball, the way he manipulates the ball, and also the way he's able to think for himself.
From BBC ● Aug. 31, 2026
In an interview with the Shade Room last year, Knight’s son, Shanga Hankerson, claimed McDowell pushed the singer into performing and manipulates her.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 29, 2026
A well-read person grows body armor against the rigid conspiracy theorist, against flat artificial intelligence that manipulates without emotion.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 13, 2026
He manipulates the physical form of the ingredient to showcase different temperatures and textures: souffle, cream, biscuit, foam, and air.
From Salon ● Aug. 6, 2026
A writer, like a cinematographer, manipulates the viewer’s perspective on an ongoing story, with the verbal equivalent of camera angles and quick cuts. the marital, the medical, and sometimes both at once.
From "The Sense of Style" by Steven Pinker
For example, one Georgia ad included the disclaimer, “This video has been manipulated or generated with artificial intelligence,” while an Oklahoma ad said, “Political satire. AI-generated images do not depict actual events.”
From Salon ● Oct. 6, 2026
Sensitivity measures how successfully the system identifies manipulated videos, making the particularly high sensitivity important for a screening tool designed to keep fake content from slipping through.
From Science Daily ● Oct. 1, 2026
The sham thrust to the forefront a growing problem: Law enforcement agencies across the country increasingly are receiving photos and other evidence that’s been manipulated or wholly generated with artificial intelligence, experts say.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 1, 2026
It’s hard to raise the subject of bad actors and scammers without the elderly parent or grandparent feeling like they are in some way easily manipulated.
From MarketWatch ● Sep. 24, 2026
Muller’s experiments demonstrated that heredity could be manipulated quite easily: the mutation rate was itself quite mutable.
From "The Gene" by Siddhartha Mukherjee
That is where I try to land at the end: We’re not going to solve this problem by manipulating the chatbots.
From Slate ● Sep. 29, 2026
Cloud seeding involves manipulating existing clouds, such as by dropping salt crystals or silver iodide into them, to help produce more rain.
From BBC ● Sep. 23, 2026
Fielder finds himself drawn from behind the camera into the story, struggling to determine whether Holmes and Evans are being candid with him or manipulating him.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 7, 2026
The Public Sentiment Institute issued a statement to the Hill newspaper that accepted responsibility for “disclosure failure” and “methodological error” but denied deliberately manipulating polling data.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 1, 2026
In a perfect world, an economist could run a controlled experiment just as a physicist or a biologist does: setting up two samples, randomly manipulating one of them, and measuring the effect.
From "Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything" by Steven D. Levitt
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.
