articulate

Borrowed from Latin articulātus (“distinct, articulated, jointed”).

• (UK) enPR: ärtĭ'kyələt, IPA^(key): /ɑː(ɹ)ˈtɪk.jʊ.lət/
• (US) enPR: ärtĭ'kyələt, IPA^(key): /ɑːɹˈtɪk.jə.lət/

• Audio (US)

  (file)

• Audio (UK)

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articulate (comparative more articulate, superlative most articulate)

1. Clear; effective.
2. Speaking in a clear and effective manner.

   She’s a bright, articulate young woman.

3. Consisting of segments united by joints.

   The robot arm was articulate in two directions.

   jointed articulate animals

4. Distinctly marked off.

   an articulate period in history

5. (obsolete) Expressed in articles or in separate items or particulars.

   (Can we find and add a quotation of Francis Bacon to this entry?)

6. (obsolete, of sound) Related to human speech, as distinct from the vocalisation of animals.
   • 1728, James Knapton and John Knapton, Cyclopaedia, or an Universal Dictionary of Arts and Sciences, page 146:

     Brutes cannot form articulate Sounds, cannot articulate the Sounds of the Voice, excepting some few Birds, as the Parrot, Pye, &c.

• (good at speaking): eloquent, well-spoken

articulate (plural articulates)

1. (zoology) An animal of the subkingdom Articulata.

From the adjective.

• (UK) enPR: ärtĭ'kyəlāt, IPA^(key): /ɑː(ɹ)ˈtɪk.jʊ.leɪt/
• (US) enPR: ärtĭ'kyəlāt, IPA^(key): /ɑːɹˈtɪk.jə.leɪt/

• Audio (US)

  (file)

• Audio (UK)

  (file)

articulate (third-person singular simple present articulates, present participle articulating, simple past and past participle articulated)

1. To make clear or effective.
2. To speak clearly; to enunciate.

   I wish he’d articulate his words more clearly.

3. To explain; to put into words; to make something specific.

   I like this painting, but I can’t articulate why.

4. To bend or hinge something at intervals, or to allow or build something so that it can bend.

   an articulated bus

5. (music) to attack a note, as by tonguing, slurring, bowing, etc.

   Articulate that passage heavily.

6. (anatomy) to form a joint or connect by joints

   The lower jaw articulates with the skull at the temporomandibular joint.

7. (obsolete) To treat or make terms.
   • c. 1605–1608, Shakespeare, William, Coriolanus, act 1, scene 9, lines 75–77:

     Send us to Rome / The best, with whom we may articulate / For their own good and ours.

• articulable

• articulation
• pseudoarticulated
• pseudoarticulation

• articulate in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.
• articulate in The Century Dictionary, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911.

articulāte

1. first-person plural present active imperative of articulō

• articulate in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• articulate in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire Illustré Latin-Français, Hachette