Word.ws English Dictionary

librate

/ˈlaɪbɹeɪt/

librate verb: to oscillate (like the beam of a balance).

Verb

librate (third-person singular simple present librates, present participle librating, simple past and past participle librated)

  1. (intransitive) To oscillate (like the beam of a balance).
    • Their parts all librate on too nice a beam.1796, William Cliffton, The Group
    • The currently observed orbital resonances at the 2:1 mean motion commensurabilities involving Io-Europa and Europa-Ganymede are such that the resonance variables #92;theta#95;1#61;#92;lambda#95;1-2#92;lambda#95;2#43;#92;omega#95;1 and...2002 October 18, S. J. Peale, Man Hoi Lee, “A Primordial Origin of the Laplace Relation Among the Galilean Satellites”, in Science, volume 298, number 5593, →DOI, page 594
  2. (figuratively, intransitive) To waver or deliberate between two opposing thoughts or choices.
    • But she winds about him coil after coil of her glittering rhetoric, in which reason holds its own as it librates with specious feeling.1924, Herbert Weir Smyth, “VI. Orestea. I: Agamemnon”, in Aeschylean Tragedy, page 168
  3. (intransitive) To be poised; to balance oneself.
    • Her playful Sea-horse […] His watery way with waving volutes wins, / Or listening librates on unmoving fins.1791, Erasmus Darwin, The Economy of Vegetation, J. Johnson, page 138
  4. (obsolete, transitive) To place in a balance; to weigh.

Noun

librate (plural librates)

  1. (historical) A piece of land having a value of one pound per year.

Forms of librate

Verb
third-person singular presentlibrates
present participlelibrating
past participlelibrated
pastlibrated
Noun
plurallibrates

Origin of librate

First attested in 1623; borrowed from Latin lībrātus, perfect passive participle of lībrō (see -ate (verb-forming suffix)), from lībra (“a balance”).

From Medieval Latin lībrāta, from Latin lībra (“pound”).

Questions about librate

What does librate mean?
Librate means to oscillate (like the beam of a balance).
What part of speech is librate?
Librate can be a verb or a noun.
How do you pronounce librate?
Librate is pronounced /ˈlaɪbɹeɪt/.
What is the past tense of librate?
The past tense of librate is librated.

Words near librate in the dictionary

  1. libraryfuls
  2. librarying
  3. libraryless
  4. librarylike
  5. libras
  6. librate
  7. librated
  8. librates
  9. librating
  10. libration
  11. libration point

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: librate (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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Cite this entry: “librate.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/librate. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.