originate
Americanverb (used without object)
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originates,
present (3rd person singular)
-
originated,
past participle, past
-
originating
present participle
-
to take its origin or rise; begin; start; arise.
The practice originated during the Middle Ages.
-
(of a train, bus, or other public conveyance) to begin a scheduled run at a specified place.
This train originates at Philadelphia.
verb (used with object)
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originates,
present (3rd person singular)
-
originated,
past participle, past
-
originating
present participle
verb
-
to come or bring into being
-
(intr) (of a bus, train, etc) to begin its journey at a specified point
Synonym Usage
See discover.
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
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originationnoun
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originatornoun
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self-originationnoun
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originableadjective
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self-originatedadjective
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self-originatingadjective
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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originatesimple
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originatessimple
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have originatedperfect
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has originatedperfect
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am originatingprogressive
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are originatingprogressive
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is originatingprogressive
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have been originatingperfect progressive
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has been originatingperfect progressive
Past
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originatedsimple
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had originatedperfect
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was originatingprogressive
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were originatingprogressive
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had been originatingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of originate
First recorded in 1645–55; probably back formation from origination (from French ), from Latin orīginātiō “etymology”; see origin, -ate 1, ion
Explanation
Originate is a verb that means to start or create something. You can originate the idea of adding a fancy new coffee machine to your company's break room, and before long, your entire office could be happily drinking mocha lattes. Originate is the place or point at which any new thing or idea starts. It usually doesn't end there, though. A carpet that originates in Turkey can travel all the way to an apartment in New York. A rumor can originate during first period, but by lunchtime it will have made its way around the entire high school.
Vocabulary lists containing originate
100 SAT words Beginning with "O"
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Jumpstart Your Vocab: Synonyms for "Begin"
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Ten Words from Today's NY Times - June 6, 2012
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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:
Because stars and their surrounding disks originate from the same cloud of material, scientists have long assumed that they contain similar proportions of rock-forming elements.
From Science Daily ● Oct. 14, 2026
Several major rivers flowing through these countries originate on the Tibetan Plateau.
From BBC ● Oct. 14, 2026
"The shows driving the industry forward largely originate on streaming platforms, yet the awards themselves were tethered to broadcast television," Proulx said.
From BBC ● Oct. 6, 2026
"We wish to clarify that the document and information in question do not originate from official sources and are untrue," it said on Telegram.
From Barron's ● Oct. 6, 2026
I don’t know who starts the whisper; it seems to originate from nothing, to come from no one.
From "Insurgent" by Veronica Roth
The Afrobeats genre, which originates from West Africa, has massively grown in recent years - dominating playlists and seeing artists, including Starr, featuring at major festivals such as Glastonbury.
From BBC ● Oct. 9, 2026
Researchers now want to determine exactly how much gas these winds remove over time and identify where within the disk the escaping material originates.
From Science Daily ● Sep. 28, 2026
The Fed could decide that much of the recent inflation pressure originates from energy and geopolitical disruption and leave rates unchanged.
From MarketWatch ● Sep. 15, 2026
“Differences in legal frameworks, cyber capability, resilience and recovery capacity across jurisdictions could therefore have consequences well beyond the jurisdiction in which an incident originates and may themselves become a source of vulnerability,” Bailey wrote.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 31, 2026
Once life originates, it tends to be very adaptable and tenacious.
From "Cosmos" by Carl Sagan
It is also due to deep evolutionary roots, as many animal and plant groups originated here in the distant past.
From Science Daily ● Oct. 13, 2026
The fate of these women and their children has proven a sticking point for the Western countries from where some originated, with many trapped or stripped of their citizenship by their former homelands.
From Barron's ● Oct. 13, 2026
Dexy's Midnight Runners frontman Kevin Rowland, who signed the letter, told BBC News NI that it "originated from an honest response to the situation on the Garvaghy Road".
From BBC ● Oct. 7, 2026
But the musicians in front of you are not the humans who originated the music, and that matters because the energy is not the same.
From Salon ● Oct. 7, 2026
Twin studies had originated in Francis Galton’s work in the 1890s.
From "The Gene" by Siddhartha Mukherjee
Since the early 2000s, India and China had agreements under which Beijing provided flood-season hydrological data on the Brahmaputra and Sutlej, two major rivers originating in Tibet.
From BBC ● Oct. 14, 2026
The chemistry prize follows the physics prize, which on Tuesday honoured Belgian physicist Francis Halzen for groundbreaking work using Antarctic ice to capture particles originating in the distant cosmos.
From Barron's ● Oct. 7, 2026
The central possibility remains compelling: some changes associated with aging may be influenced by signals originating in a small part of the brain.
From Science Daily ● Sep. 18, 2026
Lakeland-Winter Haven, Florida led the country, with 83.1% of views to new-construction listings originating outside the metro area.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 27, 2026
Their spread was soon followed by that of other innovations originating in or near the Fertile Crescent, including the wheel, writing, metalworking techniques, milking, fruit trees, and beer and wine production.
From "Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies" by Jared M. Diamond
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