locate

/ˈloʊkeɪt/

/ˈlʌʊkeɪt/

Other forms: located; locating; locates

If you wanted to decide where to locate your car wash, you might locate a spot on a map with lots of traffic, a parking lot, and a ready source of water. Locate means to find or place.

If your mother can never locate her keys, it means she loses them all of the time and has to look all around the house before going out. If you move to a new place, usually for a job, you relocate. But if you decide to find a job that is located in your town, you call that staying local, which, like locate, derives from the Latin locus meaning "place."

Definitions of locate

1. verb

   discover the location of; determine the place of; find by searching or examining
   “Can you locate your cousins in the Midwest?”

   synonyms: turn up

   dig up, excavate, turn up

   find by digging in the ground

   types:

   unearth

   bring to light

   nail, pinpoint

   locate exactly

   type of:

   find, regain

   come upon after searching; find the location of something that was missed or lost
2. verb

   determine or indicate the place, site, or limits of, as if by an instrument or by a survey
   “Our sense of sight enables us to locate objects in space”

   “Locate the boundaries of the property”

   synonyms: situate

   types:

   acquire

   locate (a moving entity) by means of a tracking system such as radar

   radiolocate

   locate by means of radar

   map

   locate within a specific region of a chromosome in relation to known DNA or gene sequences

   localise, localize, place

   identify the location or place of

   base

   situate as a center of operations

   type of:

   ascertain, determine, find, find out

   establish after a calculation, investigation, experiment, survey, or study
3. verb

   assign a location to
   “The company located some of their agents in Los Angeles”

   synonyms: place, site

   type of:

   place, post, send, station

   assign to a station
4. verb

   take up residence and become established
   synonyms: settle

   types:

   colonise, colonize

   settle as colonists or establish a colony (in)

   resettle

   settle in a new place