desiderate
/dɪˈsɪdəɹeɪt/
desiderate verb: to miss; to feel the absence of; to long for.
Verb
desiderate (third-person singular simple present desiderates, present participle desiderating, simple past and past participle desiderated)
- To miss; to feel the absence of; to long for.
- Between our human nature and the nature they desiderate there is a deep and fordless river, over which they can throw no bridge, and all their talk supposes that we shall be able to fly or wade across it […]1879, William Hurrell Mallock, Is Life Worth Living?
- it put him in thought of that missing link of creation’s chain desiderated by the late ingenious Mr Darwin.1922, James Joyce, Ulysses
Adjective
desiderate (comparative more desiderate, superlative most desiderate)
- desired, wished or longed for
- O Friend of God, know then that London is the desiderate town even of all Earth's cities.1916, Lord Dunsany, “A Tale of London”, in Tales of Wonder
Forms of desiderate
| Verb | |
|---|---|
| third-person singular present | desiderates |
| present participle | desiderating |
| past participle | desiderated |
| past | desiderated |
| Adjective | |
| comparative | more desiderate |
| superlative | most desiderate |
Origin of desiderate
From Latin, from the participle stem of the verb dēsīderāre (“to desire”). The verb is a doublet of desire.
Questions about desiderate
- What does desiderate mean?
- Desiderate means to miss; to feel the absence of; to long for.
- What part of speech is desiderate?
- Desiderate can be a verb or an adjective.
- How do you pronounce desiderate?
- Desiderate is pronounced /dɪˈsɪdəɹeɪt/.
- What is the past tense of desiderate?
- The past tense of desiderate is desiderated.
Words near desiderate in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: desiderate (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-desiderate.wav.
Cite this entry: “desiderate.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/desiderate. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.