Adjective: articulate
Comparison Forms
Synthetic
Perifrastic
| Comparative | more articulate |
| Superlative | most articulate |
Sample Sentences
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She’s a bright, articulate young woman.
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jointed articulate animals
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The robot arm was articulate in two directions.
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an articulate period in history
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articulate sounds [1627 (indicated as 1626), Francis [Bacon], “II. Century.”, in Sylua Syluarum: Or A Naturall Historie. In Ten Centuries. […], London: […] William Rawley […]; [p]rinted by J[ohn] H[aviland] for William Lee […], →OCLC:]
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Brutes cannot form articulate Sounds, cannot articulate the Sounds of the Voice, excepting some few Birds, as the Parrot, Pye, &c. [1728, James Knapton, John Knapton, Cyclopaedia, or an Universal Dictionary of Arts and Sciences, page 146:]
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Theſe things indeede you haue articulate(d),
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Proclaim'd at Market Croſſes, read in Churches,
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To face the Garment of Rebellion
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VVith ſome fine colour, that may pleaſe the eye
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Of fickle Changelings, and poore Diſcontents,
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Which gape, and rub the Elbovv at the nevves
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Of hurly burly Innouation :
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And neuer yet did Inſurrection vvant
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Such vvater-colours, to impaint his cauſe :
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Nor moody Beggars, ſtaruing for a time
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Of pell-mell hauocke, and confuſion, [c. 1597 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The First Part of Henry the Fourth, […]”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act V, scene ii], page 69, column 2:]
Adjectives inflected like articulate
priest-ridden,
unreposed,
evadible,
dissentious,
dissentient,
unforesighted,
egocentrical,
unephemeral,
unennobling,
mensuralist,
flocculent,
unseductive,
whoopsy,
whooshy,
surrogate,
Nicodian,
unrepaired,
prismatoidal,
renorenal,
unseducible, etc. (List truncated at 20 adjectives)
Etymology
The adjective is first attested in 1531, the verb in 1551; borrowed from Latin articulātus (“distinct, articulated, jointed”), perfect passive participle of articulō, see -ate (etymology 1, 2 and 3). Regular participial usage of the adjective up until Early Modern English. See: Latin Adjectives '
articulātus'.