Word.ws English Dictionary

quintate

UK/ˈkwɪnteɪt/

quintate verb: to seize or destroy one fifth (of something). Also the misconstruction of quinate.

Verb

quintate (present participle quintating)

  1. (obsolete, rare) To seize or destroy one fifth (of something).
    • ⁽¹⁾ Let Pharaoh…quintate^✸ the land of Egypt in the seven years of abundance of provision.
    • ✸ Quintate signifies to take a fifth of any thing, and is derived from the Latin quintus, signifying a fifth, as decimate is derived from decimus, signifying a tenth.
    • ⁽²⁾ “And let him quintate the land” — that hereby is signified which were to be preserved and afterwards stored up, appears from the signification of quintating, as here involving the like with decimating.1812, Emanuel Swedenborg [aut.] and J. Clowes [tr.], Arcana Cœlestia VII (2nd ed.), chapter xli, pages 210⁽¹⁾ and 270⁽²⁾

Noun

quintate (plural quintates)

  1. (rare) The set of the series of integers that occur between a multiple of five and the next (exclusive of those multiples).
    • We have as variations for the numbers from 6 to 9, 6 = X + 1…, 7 = X + 2, etc.,…the numerals of the second quintate repeating without the use of the expressed base five.1913, W.C. Eells, “Number Systems of the North American Indians”, in The American Mathematical Monthly, XX, page 294

Also used as

quintate is also the misconstruction of quinate.

Forms of quintate

Verb
present participlequintating
Noun
pluralquintates

Origin of quintate

First attested in verbal use in 1812, in adjectival use in 1851, and in nominal use in 1889; from the Classical Latin quīntus (“fifth”); in the verbal sense after decimate, and in the botanic senses by mistaken analogy with ternate.

Words formed from quintate

Questions about quintate

What does quintate mean?
Quintate means to seize or destroy one fifth (of something).
What part of speech is quintate?
Quintate can be a verb or a noun.
How do you pronounce quintate?
Quintate is pronounced /ˈkwɪnteɪt/ (UK).

Words near quintate in the dictionary

  1. quintar
  2. quintaries
  3. quintars
  4. quintary
  5. quintas
  6. quintate
  7. quintates
  8. quintating
  9. quintation
  10. quintations
  11. Quintavius

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: quintate (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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