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nucleate

American  
[noo-klee-it, -ayt, nyoo-, noo-klee-ayt, nyoo-] / ˈnu kli ɪt, -ˌeɪt, ˈnju-, ˈnu kliˌeɪt, ˈnju- /

adjective

  1. having a nucleus.


verb (used with object)

nucleated, nucleating
  1. to form (something) into a nucleus.

verb (used without object)

nucleated, nucleating
  1. to form a nucleus.

nucleate British  

adjective

  1. having a nucleus

"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

verb

  1. to form a nucleus

"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Other Word Forms


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.

See Examples For:

The research team delved deeply into possible mechanisms for diamonds to nucleate and grow under these new conditions.

From Science Daily ● Apr. 24, 2024

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

Dark energy also destabilizes the system and causes universes to nucleate out like raindrops in a cloud.

From Scientific American ● Aug. 6, 2012

In almost all nucleate cells the nucleus is resorbed when the cell reaches its full development, and it is larger and more important the younger the cell is.

From Form and Function A Contribution to the History of Animal Morphology by E. S. (Edward Stuart) Russell

"Basically, you could have different types of order that get nucleated because of the proximity of these two frustrated lattices," he said.

From Science Daily ● Mar. 16, 2026

Dr Dirk Brandherm and his colleagues have identified more than 600 suspected houses in the Brusselstown Ring making it, to date, the largest nucleated settlement ever discovered in the entirety of prehistoric Britain and Ireland.

From BBC ● Jan. 1, 2026

This observation indicates that the cylindrical crystals evolve from the 30-nm seeds by epitaxial growth, and that they are not newly nucleated crystals.

From Nature ● Mar. 14, 2017

In recent years, scholarly papers have been published on how to test old remains that no longer contain nucleated cells.

From Washington Times ● Nov. 30, 2014

Margulis has summarized the now considerable body of data indicating that the modern nucleated cell was made up, part by part, by the coming together of just such prokaryotic animals.

From "The Lives of a Cell" by Lewis Thomas

"And all of the ice nucleation in nature that is extremely effective seems to be done by proteins, although the size of the individual ice nucleating proteins vary a lot among organisms."

From Science Daily ● Nov. 13, 2023

The quantification of ice nucleating particles and understanding their properties proved to be a cumbersome challenge.

From Science Daily ● Sep. 28, 2023

But the thing I would gently push back on is that the notion of a collision nucleating some vast explosion is not at all clear.

From The Verge ● Dec. 17, 2021

The first galaxies probably started out small and disorganized, nucleating around clumps of dark matter, unseen stuff that makes up 85% of the matter of the universe.

From Science Magazine ● Nov. 11, 2021

Men are nucleating in a fashion foreboding, but certain.

From A Hero and Some Other Folks by William A. (William Alfred) Quayle

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