fluoridate
fluoridate verb: to add fluoride to something, especially to drinking water in order to reduce tooth decay.
Verb
fluoridate (third-person singular simple present fluoridates, present participle fluoridating, simple past and past participle fluoridated)
- To add fluoride to something, especially to drinking water in order to reduce tooth decay.
- Out of the 484 Utah water systems that reported data in 2024, only 66 fluoridated their water, an Associated Press analysis showed. The largest was the state’s biggest city, Salt Lake City.2025 March 28, “Utah becomes the first state to ban fluoride in public drinking water”, in CNN, sourced from Associated Press
- In England, about one in 10 people has fluoridated drinking water, though a programme has since been introduced to fluoridate water for 1.6 million people in north-east England.2025 March 29, Nadine Yousif, “Utah becomes first US state to ban fluoride in its water”, in BBC
- Synonyms:
- fluoridize
Synonyms of fluoridate
Forms of fluoridate
| third-person singular present | fluoridates |
|---|---|
| present participle | fluoridating |
| past participle | fluoridated |
| past | fluoridated |
Origin of fluoridate
Back-formation from fluoridation, equivalent to fluoride + -ate.
Words formed from fluoridate
Questions about fluoridate
- What does fluoridate mean?
- Fluoridate means to add fluoride to something, especially to drinking water in order to reduce tooth decay.
- What part of speech is fluoridate?
- Fluoridate is a verb.
- What is the past tense of fluoridate?
- The past tense of fluoridate is fluoridated.
Words near fluoridate in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: fluoridate (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.
Last updated:
Cite this entry: “fluoridate.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/fluoridate. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.