pollinate
Americanverb (used with object)
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pollinates,
present (3rd person singular)
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pollinated,
past participle, past
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pollinating
present participle
verb
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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pollinatesimple
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pollinatessimple
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have pollinatedperfect
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has pollinatedperfect
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am pollinatingprogressive
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are pollinatingprogressive
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is pollinatingprogressive
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have been pollinatingperfect progressive
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has been pollinatingperfect progressive
Past
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pollinatedsimple
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had pollinatedperfect
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was pollinatingprogressive
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were pollinatingprogressive
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had been pollinatingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of pollinate
1870–75; < New Latin pollin- (stem of pollen ) pollen + -ate 1
Explanation
To pollinate is to move the pollen from one plant to another. When a bee, for example, pollinates a flower, it helps the plant reproduce. You know what they say about the birds and the bees... In some cases, plants pollinate with the help of the wind, while often it takes an insect or bird moving the grainy substance called pollen between plants. This process involves pollen being transferred to the female parts of a plant, where fertilization takes place. Pollinate comes from the Latin word pollination, and its root, pollen, or "fine flour."
Vocabulary lists containing pollinate
Life Science: Plants
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Buzzwords for National Honey Bee Day
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Life Science IV
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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:
Insects pollinate more than 80 percent of wild plant species, serve as food for 60 percent of bird species, and support food webs, nutrient cycling, and global food production.
From Science Daily ● Sep. 9, 2026
On top of that an avocado tree cannot easily pollinate itself.
From BBC ● Sep. 4, 2026
The plants are inclined to bloom out of sequence, “because they want to pollinate another plant that’s in the vicinity.”
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 10, 2026
Insects are essential members of the web of life that pollinate many flowering plants, serve as a food source for birds and animals, and perform other important ecological services.
From Salon ● Dec. 30, 2024
He kills thousands of harmless insects as well, including some that actually do good, such as bees that pollinate the flowers and give us honey.
From "My Life with the Chimpanzees" by Jane Goodall
In some plant insect relationships, the insect both pollinates the plant and uses the fruit as a place for its offspring to grow.
From Science Daily ● Mar. 12, 2026
The tequila bat feeds on the flowers of the agave—a kind of succulent—and pollinates them.
From Science Magazine ● Oct. 11, 2023
It self pollinates as it has both male and female flowers and the opening and closing of doors in the palm house is enough passage of air for this to happen.
From BBC ● Sep. 24, 2021
They have devoted a plot to 90 experimental varieties bred by Cliff Ambers, an iconoclastic viticulturist who pollinates native grape vines with pollen from European vinifera varieties.
From Washington Post ● May 10, 2019
The Carpathian "D", apparently, pollinates the Crath No. 1 well.
From Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the 41st Annual Meeting Pleasant Valley, New York, August 28, 29 and 30, 1950 by Northern Nut Growers Association
For many varieties, if you want a crop, then the flowers have to pollinated in the dark, often by hand.
From BBC ● Mar. 26, 2026
Also called the ajo lily, it grows from a deep bulb, has long, wavy-edged leaves and is pollinated by sphinx moths.
From Los Angeles Times ● Dec. 30, 2025
Over the decades, that seed has grown into a wild and unruly tangle of misinformation and hysteria, amply pollinated by social media, wellness influencers, and a lack of science literacy.
From Slate ● Sep. 29, 2024
In terms of shape, it was found that only the plants pollinated by bumblebees showed clear differences between the soil types, while the hand-pollinated plant groups remained largely the same.
From Science Daily ● Jun. 19, 2024
Some mutant individuals developed fruit without even having to be pollinated, resulting in our seedless bananas, grapes, oranges, and pineapples.
From "Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies" by Jared M. Diamond
Farmers pay Funkhouser to truck his bees across the country -- as far as the almond fields of California -- where they spend around two weeks pollinating crops.
From Barron's ● May 19, 2026
A botanic garden in West Sussex is celebrating five years of its "pioneering" research, which aims to boost pollinating insect populations.
From BBC ● Apr. 28, 2026
Bees are responsible for pollinating roughly one-third of the crops grown around the world, making their health critical for food systems, food security and communities everywhere.
From Science Daily ● Nov. 22, 2025
They are also, not incidentally, highly useful to human society, producing honey and beeswax — both of which are used in a wide range of products — while also pollinating the plants that feed us.
From Salon ● Apr. 17, 2025
Some agricultural crops and many wild plants are partly or wholly dependent on the services of the native pollinating insects.
From "Silent Spring" by Rachel Carson
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.
