osculate

English

Etymology

From Latin ōsculātus (“kiss”), from ōs + -culus (“little mouth”). Doublet of oscillate.

Pronunciation

Verb

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈɒskjʊˌleɪt/, /ˈɒskjəˌleɪt/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /ˈɑskjəˌleɪt/, /ˈɑskjuˌleɪt/

• Audio:

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Adjective

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈɒskjʊlət/, /ˈɒskjələt/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /ˈɑskjələt/, /ˈɑskjulət/

Verb

osculate (third-person singular simple present osculates, present participle osculating, simple past and past participle osculated)

1. (transitive, intransitive) To kiss.
   • 2001, Jonathan Franzen, The Corrections:

     And in the Olmsted Hotel in Cleveland he surprised a porter and a maid lasciviously osculating in a stairwell.

2. (mathematics) To touch so as to have the same tangent and curvature at the point of contact.
3. (intransitive) To make contact.
4. (Vedic arithmetic) To perform osculation.
5. To form a connecting link between two genera.

Derived terms

• osculation
• osculating
• osculatory

Adjective

osculate (not comparable)

1. Relating to kissing.

Anagrams

• costulae, lacteous, locustae, scale out, scaleout

Italian

Etymology 1

Verb

osculate

1. inflection of osculare:
   1. second-person plural present indicative
   2. second-person plural imperative

Etymology 2

Participle

osculate f pl

1. feminine plural of osculato

Latin

Participle

ōsculāte

1. vocative masculine singular of ōsculātus