Word.ws English Dictionary

relate

Syllables: re·lateUK/ɹɪˈleɪt/

relate verb: to tell in a descriptive way.

Verb

relate (third-person singular simple present relates, present participle relating, simple past and past participle related)

  1. (transitive) To tell in a descriptive way.
    • The captain related an old yarn.
    • Please relate the circumstances of your journey here today.
  2. (intransitive) To be relevant specifically to.
    • These regulations relate only to exported goods.
  3. (transitive) To bring into a relation, association, or connection (between one thing and another).
    • The use of video made it possible to relate the talk to the answers given to particular problems in the test. With this research design it was possible to relate changes in test score measures to changes in linguistic features[…]2002, Paul Light, Karen Littleton, Learning with Computers: Analysing Productive Interactions, page 92
  4. (intransitive) To have a connection.
    • The patterns on the screen relate to the pitch and volume of the music being played.
    Synonyms:
    ally, refer, pertain
  5. (intransitive, jargon) To interact.
    • Children who find it hard to relate end up being inadequately socialized.
    • 'Men' and 'women' are separate and incomplete identities forced to relate in prescribed patterns.1971, Jude, “Destruction of "Sexual Duality"”, in Body Politic, number 1, page 3
  6. (intransitive) To respond through reaction.
  7. (intransitive) To identify with; to understand.
    • I find it difficult to relate to others because I'm extremely introverted.
  8. (obsolete) To bring back; to restore.
    • Abate your zealous haste, till morrow next again / Both light of heaven and strength of men relate.1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book III, Canto IX”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC, stanza 51

relate meaning in Tamil, Urdu, Bengali and Malayalam

relate in Tamil

உறவு, விவரம் கூறு, தொடர்பு ஏற்படுத்து

relate in Urdu

to relate
کلام کرنا kalām karnā

relate in Bengali

কহা, বর্ণন করা, সম্বন্ধস্থাপন করা, সম্বন্ধযুক্ত হওয়া

relate in Malayalam

കഥിക്കുക, ആഖ്യാനിക്കുക, പരാമർശിക്കുക, ബന്ധപ്പെടുത്തുക
More languagesFewer languages
relate in Kannada
ಒಕ್ಕಣಿಸು okkaṇisu
relate in Sanskrit
गदति gadati
relate in Persian
روایت کردن

Examples of relate in a sentence

  • Einstein gave birth to a famous equation relating energy to mass.
  • His whole celebrity trip made it hard to relate to him.
  • A gravitic system relates to systems involving the use of or resistance to gravity.

All 40 example sentences with relate

Synonyms of relate

All synonyms of relate

Forms of relate

third-person singular presentrelates
present participlerelating
past participlerelated
pastrelated

Past tense of relate: related

Origin of relate

From Latin relātus, perfect passive participle of referō (“carry back; report”), see -ate (verb-forming suffix). Doublet of refer. See also infer, collate and confer, delate and defer, as well as prefer and prelate among others.

Words formed from relate

Words that rhyme with relate

48 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about relate

What does relate mean?
Relate means to tell in a descriptive way.
What is relate in Tamil?
Relate in Tamil is உறவு, விவரம் கூறு, தொடர்பு ஏற்படுத்து. See Relate meaning in Tamil.
What part of speech is relate?
Relate is a verb.
How do you pronounce relate?
Relate is pronounced /ɹɪˈleɪt/ (UK).
What is the past tense of relate?
The past tense of relate is related.

Words near relate in the dictionary

  1. relatably
  2. relatch
  3. relatched
  4. relatches
  5. relatching
  6. relate
  7. relateable
  8. related
  9. related right
  10. related rights
  11. relatedly

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: relate (page history and authors); relate (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); کلام کرنا (Urdu) (page history and authors); relate (Bengali Wiktionary) (page history and authors); relate (Malayalam Wiktionary) (page history and authors); ಒಕ್ಕಣಿಸು (Kannada) (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-relate.ogg.

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