validate
Americanverb (used with object)
-
to make valid; substantiate; confirm.
Time validated our suspicions.
- Synonyms:
- prove, verify, authenticate
- Antonyms:
- disprove
-
to give legal force to; legalize.
-
to give official sanction, confirmation, or approval to, as elected officials, election procedures, documents, etc..
to validate a passport.
verb
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to confirm or corroborate
-
to give legal force or official confirmation to; declare legally valid
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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validatesimple
-
validatessimple
-
have validatedperfect
-
has validatedperfect
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am validatingprogressive
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are validatingprogressive
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is validatingprogressive
-
have been validatingperfect progressive
-
has been validatingperfect progressive
Past
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validatedsimple
-
had validatedperfect
-
was validatingprogressive
-
were validatingprogressive
-
had been validatingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of validate
First recorded in 1640–50; from Medieval Latin validātus (past participle of validāre “to make valid”), equivalent to valid- ( see valid) + -ātus past participle suffix ( see -ate 1)
Explanation
To validate is to prove that something is based on truth or fact, or is acceptable. It can also mean to make something, like a contract, legal. You may need someone to validate your feelings, which means that you want to hear, “No, you’re not crazy. It’s acceptable to be angry about that.” Or you may need someone to validate your parking ticket — which means you have to prove that you bought something, so you can get parking for free. Whatever it is you are seeking to validate needs the added support or action from someone else to make it valid.
Vocabulary lists containing validate
The SAT: Language of the Test, List 2
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The New SAT: The Language of the Test
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The ACT: The Language of the Test, List 3
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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.
“It wasn’t Bad Bunny trying to validate us in front of others. It was him saying, ‘This is who we are, and we are proud of who we are.’”
From Los Angeles Times • Jun. 24, 2026
Watch whether Nuro begins driverless testing on schedule later this year and carries paying passengers before year’s end, since both events release more Uber capital and validate the licensing model.
From MarketWatch • Jun. 24, 2026
"They need to compensate us. They need to validate the harm, the systemic harm that it caused us for the rest of our lives."
From BBC • Jun. 12, 2026
Beyond the current demonstrations, the work supports NASA's broader effort to develop and validate commercial communications architectures that could support missions in low Earth orbit and eventually farther into space.
From Science Daily • Jun. 6, 2026
By contrast, Lauritsen and his Caltech colleagues soberly devoted two full pages to a meticulous accounting of every step they had taken to validate the French findings on carbon and boron alone.
From "Big Science" by Michael Hiltzik
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.
