triangulate
Americanadjective
verb (used with object)
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to make triangular.
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to divide into triangles.
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to survey (an area) by triangulation.
verb
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to survey by the method of triangulation
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to calculate trigonometrically
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to divide into triangles
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to make triangular
adjective
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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triangulatesimple
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triangulatessimple
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have triangulatedperfect
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has triangulatedperfect
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am triangulatingprogressive
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are triangulatingprogressive
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is triangulatingprogressive
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have been triangulatingperfect progressive
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has been triangulatingperfect progressive
Past
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triangulatedsimple
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had triangulatedperfect
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was triangulatingprogressive
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were triangulatingprogressive
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had been triangulatingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of triangulate
1600–10; < Medieval Latin triangulātus, past participle of triangulāre to make triangles. See triangle, -ate 1
Explanation
To triangulate is to divide into triangles or use triangles to measure something. Sometimes people triangulate to measure distance. When you use three points to measure something, you triangulate. Recognize the word triangle in triangulate? It’s no coincidence, both words come from the Latin triangulum for yes, “triangle.” When you triangulate, you make a series of triangles to measure distance or altitude. The height of a mountain and the distance to a river could both be estimated by triangulating. This type of triangulating is derived from trigonometry, which involves measuring the length and angles of triangles. You may have done that type of triangulating in math class.
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:
Plant three of them, and you can triangulate the position of an enemy drone, among other targets.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 7, 2026
"You could triangulate to where the jammer was located."
From BBC ● Mar. 9, 2026
The researchers propose that spiders may triangulate the insects’ distance and direction using hairlike structures on their legs called trichobothria that pick up minute fluctuations in sound and air currents.
From Science Magazine ● Dec. 4, 2024
Padilla and I talked about her poem “utilizing Google Maps to triangulate the course of my desmadre over the years.”
From Los Angeles Times ● Dec. 19, 2023
Sometimes two examples are better than one, because they allow the reader to triangulate on which aspect of the example is relevant to the definition.
From "The Sense of Style" by Steven Pinker
Crow triangulates the sound among Marvin Gaye, Bob Dylan and Stealers Wheel; she says the lyric illustrates “the burnout of somebody sitting in a bar across from a car wash.”
From Los Angeles Times ● Jan. 31, 2025
"We developed software that detects meteors in videos recorded from different locations and then triangulates their trajectory in the atmosphere," said detection specialist Peter S. Gural.
From Science Daily ● Mar. 21, 2024
The work nicely triangulates data from different sources, each of which has its own limitations, says Samira Asma, a WHO assistant director general who works on data and analysis.
From Science Magazine ● Jan. 5, 2022
What it did change was the way Baquet triangulates.
From Salon ● Dec. 17, 2019
Werner triangulates again and sees how close they are to his original reading—under half a kilometer.
From "All the Light We Cannot See" by Anthony Doerr
"We trained a 2D keypoint detector and triangulated points into 3D, and also show that models trained on single pigeon data work well with multi-pigeon data," explains Urs Waldmann.
From Science Daily ● May 28, 2024
Later, calls are triangulated; sometimes phone chips are switched to avoid identifying numbers.
From Seattle Times ● May 20, 2023
A 2003 paper in the journal Latin American Antiquity triangulated the settlement’s geographical coordinates, but the computer model was just that — a model that required confirmation.
From New York Times ● Sep. 13, 2022
“We had triangulated ourselves to irrelevance,” Moulitsas said.
From Washington Post ● Jan. 2, 2018
JPL would quickly figure out what was going on, especially when they triangulated the signal to my landing site.
From "The Martian" by Andy Weir
With government payroll and inflation data currently unavailable, the Fed has been triangulating conditions from private-sector trackers, state-level unemployment claims, and the Beige Book.
From Barron's ● Nov. 6, 2025
He was seen as a deft negotiator of the centre ground, triangulating his way out of the straitjacket of traditional left-right politics.
From BBC ● Sep. 30, 2025
The advent of cellular technology has made it so much easier to track where any of us have been, simply by triangulating the locations of the cell towers our phones have pinged along the way.
From Salon ● Jun. 25, 2025
They envision themselves bobbing and weaving, triangulating and feinting — filling the air with meaningless cliches so that no one knows where they stand and no one can hold them accountable.
From Seattle Times ● Feb. 26, 2023
After two years of trundling and triangulating his way across France, in 1669 he announced a more accurate measure of 110.46 kilometers for one degree of arc.
From "A Short History of Nearly Everything" by Bill Bryson
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.
