Word.ws English Dictionary

pilate

/ˈpaɪlət/

pilate adjective: resembling hair; minutely clavate.

Adjective

pilate (comparative more pilate, superlative most pilate)

  1. Resembling hair; minutely clavate.
    • pilate pollen

Proper noun capitalized: Pilate

Pilate

  1. Pontius Pilate, the man who, according to the Bible, ordered the crucifixion of Jesus.
    • I was 'round when Jesus Christ / Had his moment of doubt and pain / Made damn sure that Pilate / Washed his hands and sealed his fate1968, Keith Richards, Mick Jagger, “Sympathy for the Devil”, in Beggars Banquet, performed by Rolling Stones

Forms of pilate

comparativemore pilate
superlativemost pilate

Origin of pilate

The surname is from Latin Pīlātus (“a Roman cognomen”, literally “armed with javelins”), from pīlum (“javelin, pestle”), of unknown ultimate origin.

Words formed from pilate

Words that rhyme with pilate

Questions about pilate

What does pilate mean?
Pilate means resembling hair; minutely clavate.
What part of speech is pilate?
Pilate can be an adjective or a proper noun.
How do you pronounce pilate?
Pilate is pronounced /ˈpaɪlət/.

Words near pilate in the dictionary

  1. pilastrades
  2. pilastre
  3. pilastres
  4. pilastric
  5. Pilat
  6. pilate
  7. pilates
  8. Pilatian
  9. Pilatism
  10. Pilats
  11. pilau

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: pilate (page history and authors); Pilate (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: En-us-pilot.ogg, en-au-pilot.ogg.

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