ubicate

English

WOTD – 9 December 2024

Etymology

Probably a back-formation from ubication (“condition or fact of being in, or occupying, a certain place or position”) + -ate (suffix forming verbs). Ubication is borrowed from New Latin ubicātiō (“location”) (compare the inflected forms ubicātiōnis, ubicātiōnī, etc.), from Latin ubicātus (“located”) + -iō (suffix forming abstract nouns). Ubicātus is a past participial form of ubicō (“to situate”) (found in British works from the 14th century), from ubi (“where”) (ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *kʷ- (primary interrogative root)) + -ō (suffix forming regular first-conjugation verbs).

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) enPR: yo͞oʹ-bĭk-āt, IPA^(key): /ˈjuːbɪkeɪt/

• Audio (Southern England):

  (file)

• (General American) IPA^(key): /ˈjubəkeɪt/
• Hyphenation: ubic‧ate

Verb

ubicate (third-person singular simple present ubicates, present participle ubicating, simple past and past participle ubicated) (formal, rare)

1. (transitive) To find and specify the location of (someone or something); to locate.
   • 1875 July, “Space”, in The Catholic World. A Monthly Magazine of General Literature and Science, volume XXI, number 124, New York, N.Y.: The Catholic Publication House, […], →ISSN, →OCLC, part I, pages 444–445:

     Wherever God is, he can create a material point; and wherever a material point can be placed, there is space; for space is the region where material things can be ubicated. Now, God is everywhere by his immensity; and therefore, everywhere there is the possibility of ubicating a material point—that is, absolute space has the same range as God's immensity.

   • 1952 March, Arturo J. Bignoli, “[Structures] 667. Ewell, W. W., Three-dimensional Displacement Diagrams for Space Frame Structures, Proc. Amer. Soc. civ. Engrs. Separate no. 20, May 1950 = Trans. Amer. Soc. civ. Engrs. 116, 809–827, 1951.”, in Martin Goland, editor, Applied Mechanics Reviews: A Critical Review of the World Literature in Applied Mechanics and Related Engineering Science, volume 5, number 3, Easton, Pa.: American Society of Mechanical Engineers, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 103, column 2:

     Author applies to space pin-jointed structures the construction of Williot–Mohr displacement diagram. The possibility of ubicating a joint in such a diagram depends upon the knowledge of the variations of the distances between the joint considered and other three, already ubicated. The ubication of such a joint should be obtained as the point of intersection of the three planes normal to the directions of the lines joining the joint considered with the other three.

   • 1998, Luis F. Rodríguez, “Observational Astronomy: The Search for Black Holes”, in J[orge] G. Hirsch, D[anny] Page, editors, Nuclear and Particle Astrophysics: Proceedings of the Mexican School on Nuclear Astrophysics, Held in Guanajuato, México, August 13–20, 1997 (Cambridge Contemporary Astrophysics), Cambridge, Cambridgeshire: Cambridge University Press, →ISBN, page 4:

     In an attempt to ubicate the reader, although only approximately and somewhat arbitrarily, I have divided the typical astronomical scales in interplanetary, interstellar, galactic, and cosmological […].

   • 2003 January, Paul Proulx, “Desano Grammar: Studies in the Languages of Colombia 6. By Marion Miller. Summer Institute of Linguistics and University of Texas at Arlington Publications in Linguistics, no. 132. Dallas: Summer Institute of Linguistics, 1999. Pp. xii + 178. $25.00 (paper) [book review]”, in International Journal of American Linguistics, volume LXIX, number 1, Chicago, Ill.: University of Chicago Press, →DOI, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 100:

     This grammar is just what one would expect from an SIL-trained linguist who has specialized in a language for a number of years: it contains a great deal of information in relatively few pages. The introduction begins by ubicating the Desano people and providing a very brief set of ethnographic comments. They live on the Vaupés River in Colombia, are patrilineal, and have a sex-gendered language. There is some uxorilocal residence, though its frequency is not estimated.

   • 2023, Salvador Estrada, Juan Reyes Álvarez, “Digital and Sustainable Transformation: An Outcoming Response to the Pandemic”, in Salvador Estrada, editor, Digital and Sustainable Transformations in a Post-COVID World: Economic, Social, and Environmental Challenges, Cham, Zug, Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan, Springer Nature, →DOI, →ISBN, part I (Introductory Chapters), page 11:

     Another point of view is to ubicate the digital and sustainable transformation into a higher level of analysis from a macro and systemic perspective.

2. (intransitive) To take up residence in a place; to lodge, to occupy.
   • 1933 October 7, John Bull, “Communications: Anchoret in the Belfry [letter to the editor]”, in America: A Catholic Review of the Week, volume L, number 1 (number 1254 overall), New York, N.Y.: America Press, →OCLC, page 20, column 1:

     I am much intrigued as to whether that word Serendipity […] was found in some old dictionary or is a reaction to the Anchoret’s ubicating in a hen house at Auriesville.

Related terms

• ubiation
• ubication
• ubicity
• ubiety
• ubity

Translations

to find and specify the location of (someone or something) — see locate

to take up residence in a place — see lodge,‎ occupy

Italian

Etymology 1

Verb

ubicate

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

Etymology 2

Participle

ubicate f pl

1. feminine plural of ubicato

Spanish

Verb

ubicate

1. second-person singular voseo imperative of ubicar combined with te