Word.ws English Dictionary

lubricate

/ˈluːbrɪkeɪt/

lubricate verb: to make slippery or smooth (normally to minimize friction) by applying a lubricant.

Verb

lubricate (third-person singular simple present lubricates, present participle lubricating, simple past and past participle lubricated)

  1. To make slippery or smooth (normally to minimize friction) by applying a lubricant.
    • If your bicycle chain is squeaking you should lubricate it.
    Synonyms:
    lube
  2. (humorous) To cause someone to become drunk, especially to make them more sociable or talkative.
    • They listened with wonder and pride at their album as it played several times throughout the afternoon, with Cosmo lubricating them with beer and whiskey.2021, Robert A. Webster, Fossils
    • At Göbekli Tepe, a site in what is now modern-day Turkey we'll talk about more below, hunter-gatherers convened regularly throughout the tenth to eighth millennia BCE to feast on gazelles, build circular structures, and erect enormous T-shaped limestone pillars carved with mysterious pictograms and...2021, Edward Slingerland, Drunk: How We Sipped, Danced, and Stumbled Our Way to Civilization

lubricate meaning in Tamil, Bengali, Malayalam and Kannada

lubricate in Tamil

உயவூட்டு, மசகிடு, உராய்வுநீக்குதல், உய்வு

lubricate in Bengali

পিচ্ছিল করা, তেল দেওয়া, মসৃণ করা

lubricate in Malayalam

വഴുവഴുപ്പുളളതാക്കുക, ഗ്രീസിടുക, എണ്ണയിടുക

lubricate in Kannada

ಕೀಲೆಣ್ಣೆಹಾಕು, ಚಲನ ಸುಲಭ ಮಾಡು
More languagesFewer languages
lubricate in Tagalog
danlugan

Examples of lubricate in a sentence

  • Changing the oil lubricates the engine and removes debris in one fell swoop.
  • The engineer bought some lubricating oil for his gears.
  • Some types of lubricating grease gum up as they age.

All 18 example sentences with lubricate

Synonyms of lubricate

Forms of lubricate

third-person singular presentlubricates
present participlelubricating
past participlelubricated
pastlubricated

Past tense of lubricate: lubricated

Origin of lubricate

Borrowed from Latin lūbricātus, perfect passive participle of lūbricō (“make slippery”) (see -ate (verb-forming suffix) for more), from lūbricus (“slippery”). Ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *slewbʰ- (“slip, slide”).

Words formed from lubricate

Questions about lubricate

What does lubricate mean?
Lubricate means to make slippery or smooth (normally to minimize friction) by applying a lubricant.
What is lubricate in Tamil?
Lubricate in Tamil is உயவூட்டு, மசகிடு, உராய்வுநீக்குதல். See Lubricate meaning in Tamil.
What part of speech is lubricate?
Lubricate is a verb.
How do you pronounce lubricate?
Lubricate is pronounced /ˈluːbrɪkeɪt/.
What is the past tense of lubricate?
The past tense of lubricate is lubricated.

Words near lubricate in the dictionary

  1. lubratoriums
  2. lubric
  3. lubrical
  4. lubricant
  5. lubricants
  6. lubricate
  7. lubricated
  8. lubricates
  9. lubricating
  10. lubricating oil
  11. lubricating oils

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: lubricate (page history and authors); lubricate (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); Lubricate (Bengali Wiktionary) (page history and authors); lubricate (Malayalam Wiktionary) (page history and authors); lubricate (Kannada Wiktionary) (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:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-lubricate.wav.

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