Word.ws English Dictionary

methylate

methylate verb: to add, or treat with methyl alcohol (see methylated spirits).

Verb

methylate (third-person singular simple present methylates, present participle methylating, simple past and past participle methylated)

  1. To add, or treat with methyl alcohol (see methylated spirits)
  2. To add a methyl group to a compound
  3. To add a methyl group to a nucleic acid as part of the process of gene expression

Noun

methylate (plural methylates)

  1. The anion -O-CH₃⁻ derived from methanol by loss of a proton; any salt containing this anion

Forms of methylate

Verb
third-person singular presentmethylates
present participlemethylating
past participlemethylated
pastmethylated
Noun
pluralmethylates

Origin of methylate

From methyl + -ate (verb-forming suffix).

From methyl + -ate (“derivative”).

Words formed from methylate

Questions about methylate

What does methylate mean?
Methylate means to add, or treat with methyl alcohol (see methylated spirits).
What part of speech is methylate?
Methylate can be a verb or a noun.
What is the past tense of methylate?
The past tense of methylate is methylated.

Words near methylate in the dictionary

  1. methylarsonous acid
  2. methylase
  3. methylases
  4. methylatability
  5. methylatable
  6. methylate
  7. methylated
  8. methylated spirit
  9. methylated spirits
  10. methylates
  11. methylating

Source and license

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