designate
DEZ-ig-nayt · verb
LatinEnglish
Origin
Designate was borrowed from Latin dēsignātus, the perfect passive participle of designō. It's built with -ate, the same suffix family that shapes English adjectives and verbs from Latin participles.
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Journey
The word entered English already carrying the sense of something marked or pointed out, since it comes from a participle meaning "marked out."
Related words
Designate is a doublet of design — the two words descend from the same Latin root but took different paths into English.
More words
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