inhabit
Americanverb (used with object)
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inhabits,
present (3rd person singular)
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inhabited,
past participle, past
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inhabiting
present participle
verb (used without object)
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inhabits,
present (3rd person singular)
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inhabited,
past participle, past
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inhabiting
present participle
verb
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(tr) to live or dwell in; occupy
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archaic (intr) to abide or dwell
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
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inhabitabilitynoun
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inhabitationnoun
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preinhabitationnoun
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preinhabitverb (used with object)
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reinhabitverb (used with object)
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inhabitableadjective
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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inhabitsimple
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inhabitssimple
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have inhabitedperfect
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has inhabitedperfect
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am inhabitingprogressive
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are inhabitingprogressive
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is inhabitingprogressive
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have been inhabitingperfect progressive
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has been inhabitingperfect progressive
Past
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inhabitedsimple
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had inhabitedperfect
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was inhabitingprogressive
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were inhabitingprogressive
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had been inhabitingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of inhabit
First recorded in 1325–75; from Latin inhabitāre, equivalent to in- in- 2 + habitāre “to dwell” ( see habit 2); replacing Middle English enhabiten, from Middle French enhabiter, from Latin as above
Explanation
When you inhabit a place, you live there. When actors inhabit their roles, they seem to become the characters, no longer actors reciting their lines. It is like they live the life of the character. The verb inhabit comes from the Old French enhabiter, meaning “dwell in.” You can inhabit an actual place, like a home, a cave, or a neighborhood. You can also inhabit an imaginary world, like those who choose to inhabit cyberspace with a made-up persona, telling about experiences that are nothing like the person's real life. Actors who truly inhabit their roles sometimes struggle to return to reality after a movie or television show wraps.
Vocabulary lists containing inhabit
"The Crucible" -- Vocabulary from all 4 Acts
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"The Crucible" -- Vocabulary from Act 1
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List 2
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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:
While they may inhabit a different world than the rest of us in other respects, they live and die along with the rest of the investment world when it comes to investing.
From MarketWatch ● Sep. 24, 2026
Seventeen other penguin species live across the Southern Hemisphere, and many inhabit isolated islands that are difficult for scientists to reach and study.
From Science Daily ● Sep. 22, 2026
That translates into belonging in different spaces where I could have been uncomfortable in before, so it’s a great time to inhabit these characters.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 14, 2026
The novel introduces us to twin sisters who play, and come to deeply inhabit, the roles of a single girl’s body and soul during Victorian-era séances staged by their parents.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 18, 2026
By i960, every species of wild mammal known to inhabit the area had suffered losses.
From "Silent Spring" by Rachel Carson
One occurs mainly in China, while the other inhabits the Himalayan foothills across parts of Nepal, India, Bhutan, and Myanmar.
From Science Daily ● Aug. 26, 2026
But Seemiller argues that’s no longer the landscape Gen Z inhabits.
From Salon ● Aug. 15, 2026
The cerebral Cady that Bardem inhabits spent nearly two decades in prison convicted for his wife’s murder.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 31, 2026
It feels less carefully constructed than slowly formed - shaped long before the runways and fashion campaigns, in a life far removed from the one she inhabits now.
From BBC ● May 9, 2026
She inhabits her world, waiting for forgiveness, while her children are planted in or upon the four different nations that have claimed us.
From "The Poisonwood Bible" by Barbara Kingsolver
From 1948 to 1974, as gatekeeper at Airlie Gardens, Evans inhabited a neoclassical Eden where, locally celebrated, she made and sold her work.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 30, 2026
The area where it wants to walk is largely Catholic, and predominantly inhabited by pro-Irish nationalists.
From BBC ● Sep. 27, 2026
What’s clear, according to scientists, is that it was a massive mammal that inhabited what is now Oceanside around 40 million years ago.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 24, 2026
The birds live on the Kerguelen Islands, known in French as the Desolation Islands, nearly 2,000 miles from any permanently inhabited landmass.
From Science Daily ● Sep. 22, 2026
They employed it to build taller and taller buildings, cities in the sky inhabited by a new race of businessmen, whom some called “cliff-dwellers.”
From "The Devil in the White City" by Erik Larson
Exercises often pushed students into strange scenarios or premises: embodying an object, exploring a feeling or inhabiting a logic to find more instinctive, present performances.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 26, 2026
Studies have even shown that inhabiting a character increases one’s ability to see from others’ perspectives.
From Salon ● Jul. 30, 2026
The fossils indicate that the birds inhabiting New Zealand a million years ago were substantially different from those present when people eventually arrived.
From Science Daily ● Jun. 23, 2026
Many of the news stories highlighted the threat to the unique plants and animals inhabiting the island off the coast of Santa Barbara, from plucky, pint-sized foxes to the rarest pine trees in North America.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 5, 2026
I couldn’t travel with an alien organism inhabiting my face.
From "Darius the Great Is Not Okay" by Adib Khorram
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.
