Word.ws English Dictionary

incantate

incantate verb: to sing or speak formulas and/or rhyming words, often during occult ceremonies, for the purpose of raising spirits, producing enchantment, or creating other magical results.

Verb

incantate (third-person singular simple present incantates, present participle incantating, simple past and past participle incantated)

  1. (ambitransitive) To sing or speak formulas and/or rhyming words, often during occult ceremonies, for the purpose of raising spirits, producing enchantment, or creating other magical results.
    • Your modern witch never incantates in public.1969, Status, numbers 218-227, Curtis Publishing Company
    • Yet these are words of magic incantated by a non-religious priest: a poet.1985, Glenda Abramson, Essays in Honour of Salo Rappaport: On the Occasion of His Eightieth Birthday

Forms of incantate

third-person singular presentincantates
present participleincantating
past participleincantated
pastincantated

Origin of incantate

First attested in 1623; borrowed from Latin incantātus, perfect passive participle of incantō, see -ate (verb-forming suffix). Doublet of enchant and incant, cognate with French incantation.

Words formed from incantate

Questions about incantate

What does incantate mean?
Incantate means to sing or speak formulas and/or rhyming words, often during occult ceremonies, for the purpose of raising spirits, producing enchantment, or creating other magical results.
What part of speech is incantate?
Incantate is a verb.
What is the past tense of incantate?
The past tense of incantate is incantated.

Words near incantate in the dictionary

  1. incanescent
  2. incannulation
  3. incannulations
  4. incanous
  5. incant
  6. incantate
  7. incantated
  8. incantates
  9. incantating
  10. incantation
  11. incantational

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: incantate (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)-Aadenboy-incantate.wav.

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