variegate
Americanverb (used with object)
-
to make varied in appearance, as by adding different colors.
-
to give variety to; diversify.
verb
-
to alter the appearance of, esp by adding different colours
-
to impart variety to
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of variegate
1645–55; < Late Latin variegātus (past participle of variegāre to make (something) look varied), equivalent to Latin vari ( us ) various + -eg- (combining form of agere to do; see agent) + -ātus -ate 1
Explanation
To variegate is to make something more irregular, especially its color. You can variegate your yard by planting different colors of blooming flowers all over it. When you variegate your life in some way, you make it more interesting and varied. While it's more common to see the adjective variegated, particularly when people talk about dappled or streaked color, you can use the verb to talk about diversifying or mixing things. You can variegate your education, for example, by studying many different subjects. The Latin root, variegare, means "diversify with different colors."
Vocabulary lists containing variegate
Sapiens
Looking to grow your vocabulary? Check out this interactive, curated word list from our team of English language specialists at Vocabulary.com – one of over 17,000 lists we've built to help learners worldwide!
Change
Interested in learning more words like this one? Our team at Vocabulary.com has got you covered! You can review flashcards, quiz yourself, practice spelling, and more – and it's all completely free to use!
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:
She also found out that she has a rare gene mutation that causes a disease called variegate porphyria, which can cause blistering skin lesions and acute attacks that cause severe abdominal pain.
From Washington Post ● Jun. 26, 2017
In jihadi-speak, this is known as “marbling”: local groups variegate their formal ties with global movements when strategically or financially convenient.
From The New Yorker ● Dec. 4, 2016
If the callow ends progress properly, their flexibility should variegate the Chargers' front seven down the road.
From New York Times ● Aug. 20, 2012
To enrich his theme and variegate his texture, he abruptly interjects a two-minute "quote" from another movie and later for the same reasons rabbets in some paragraphs of Edgar Allan Poe.
From Time Magazine Archive
The apple and pear blossoms still continued to variegate the wide sweep of foliage, and to fill the air with their delicious perfume.
From A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume One by Dibdin, Thomas Frognall
Like his films, Mr. Sayles’s novels are divided among a teeming cast of variegated characters.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jan. 29, 2026
Hamlin's catastrophic on-field collapse and cardiac arrest on January 2, 2023 caused the unprecedented suspension of an NFL game, and brought home for a national TV audience the variegated harms of America's most popular sport.
From Salon ● Feb. 11, 2024
—They have vastly different approaches and philosophies to govern their sprawling, variegated states.
From Los Angeles Times ● Dec. 1, 2023
“You’ll see variegated and bicolored varieties that may not do well in stuffy show competition, but are favorites in the garden.”
From Seattle Times ● Sep. 21, 2023
But the crotons were lusher than ever and the variegated bougainvilleas she hadn’t thought would take were heavy with pink blossoms.
From "In the Time of the Butterflies" by Julia Alvarez
And beyond the academy – is it variegating at all, the audience?
From Salon ● Oct. 29, 2012
Thou dull, senseless stone, with thy numberless crystals variegating and glittering on the hard resting-place that I have chosen, whence came those minerals that combined to form thee?
From Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol. 60, No. 373, November 1846 by Various
The inhabitants are comparatively numerous in the villages, which rise at short intervals above their impervious walls of the lustrous green milk-bush, with its coral-shaped arms, variegating the well-hoed plains.
From The World and Its People: Book VII Views in Africa by Badlam, Anna B.
Even the coves differ in the materials with which their walls are built, feldspar, porphyry, and jasper variegating their rugged features with pleasing effect.
From Nooks and Corners of the New England Coast by Drake, Samuel Adams
Goethe accepts the doctrine of vis centripeta, beyond the influence of which no developmental progress can be made in the way of diversifying or variegating ideal types.
From Life: Its True Genesis by Wright, R. W.
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.
