obligate.
To bind, compel, constrain, or oblige by a social, legal, or moral tie.
Meaning & usage
To bind, compel, constrain, or oblige by a social, legal, or moral tie.
To cause to be grateful or indebted; to oblige.
To commit (money, for example) in order to fulfill an obligation.
Where this word comes from
First attested in 1533; borrowed from Latin obligātus, perfect passive participle of obligō, see -ate (verb-forming suffix). Doublet of oblige, taken through French.
Requiring a (specified) way of life, habitat, etc.
Indispensable; essential; necessary; obligatory; mandatory; unavoidably invoked.
In addition to being the obligate food source for monarch caterpillars, milkweeds also provide abundant nectar for the adult butterflies.
In some languages such signaling is optional, whereas in others it is obligate.
Bound by oath, law or duty.
Where this word comes from
Partly inherited from Middle English obligat(e) (“bound (by any obligation), obliged”), partly directly borrowed from Latin obligātus, see Etymology 1, -ate (adjective-forming suffix) and -ate (noun-forming suffix) for more.
An obligate organism.
Where this word comes from
Partly inherited from Middle English obligat(e) (“bound (by any obligation), obliged”), partly directly borrowed from Latin obligātus, see Etymology 1, -ate (adjective-forming suffix) and -ate (noun-forming suffix) for more.
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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.