nucleate
Americanadjective
verb (used with object)
verb (used without object)
adjective
verb
Other Word Forms
- multinucleate adjective
- nucleation noun
- nucleator noun
- unnucleated adjective
Etymology
Origin of nucleate
First recorded in 1860–65, nucleate is from the Latin word nucleātus having a kernel or stone. See nucleus, -ate 1
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 research team delved deeply into possible mechanisms for diamonds to nucleate and grow under these new conditions.
From Science Daily • Apr. 24, 2024
“There also needs to be laboratory research to investigate the consequences of adding these metals to sulfuric acid particles. Can the particles nucleate ice and impact clouds and chemistry in the stratosphere?”
From Scientific American • Oct. 26, 2023
So I think it’s artistic license to suggest that that could nucleate some fireworks.
From The Verge • Dec. 17, 2021
The scientists then teased out how much of those fluctuations came from water being added to or subtracted from Earth’s surface, and calculated how that affected forces deep underground where earthquakes begin, or nucleate.
From Science Magazine • Jun. 15, 2017
The spores are tawny-ochraceous, subglobose or broadly elliptic, nucleate, 8–10� long, 6–7� broad.
From The Mushroom, Edible and Otherwise Its Habitat and its Time of Growth by Hard, Miron Elisha
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.
