nucleate
Americanadjective
verb (used with object)
verb (used without object)
adjective
verb
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:
"If you look across kingdoms that can nucleate ice, there are insects, lichen, bacteria and fungi. All of these seem to have evolved independently, very potent ice nucleants" she said.
From Science Daily ● Nov. 13, 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
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
It has been suggested that flagellae and cilia were once spirochetes that joined up with the other prokaryotes when nucleated cells were being pieced together.
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
But always the nucleating force behind the bands was warfare and the prestige of certain war leaders.
From Shoshone-Bannock Subsistence and Society by Robert F. Murphy
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