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ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

actuate.

To activate, or to put into motion; to animate.

7 characters2 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

verb/ˈæktʃu.eɪt/UK/ˈæktju.eɪt/UK/ˈækt͡ʃu.eɪt/Canada, General-American/ˈækt͡ʃʉ.æɪt/Australia
  1. To activate, or to put into motion; to animate.

    transitive
  2. To incite to action; to motivate.

    transitive
Where this word comes from

Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *h₂eǵ- Proto-Indo-European *-eti Proto-Indo-European *h₂éǵeti Proto-Italic *agō Latin agō Proto-Indo-European *-tus Proto-Italic *-tus Latin -tus Latin āctus Proto-Indo-European *-h₂ Proto-Indo-European *-éh₂ Proto-Indo-European *-yéti Proto-Indo-European *-eh₂yéti Proto-Indo-European *-h₂tiinflu. Proto-Italic *-ājō Proto-Italic *-āō Latin -ō Latin āctuō Medieval Latin āctuātusder. English actuate From Medieval Latin āctuātus, perfect passive participle of āctuō (“actuate, implement”), from Latin āctus, perfect passive participle of agō (“do, act”).

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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.