lubricate - Wiktionary, the free dictionary (original) (raw)

From Wiktionary, the free dictionary

Borrowed from Latin lūbricātus, perfect passive participle of lūbricō (“make slippery”) (see -ate (verb-forming suffix) for more), from lūbricus (“slippery”).

lubricate (third-person singular simple present lubricates, present participle lubricating, simple past and past participle lubricated)

  1. To make slippery or smooth (normally to minimize friction) by applying a lubricant.
    Synonym: lube
    Hyponyms: lube up; oil, oil up; grease, grease up
    If your bicycle chain is squeaking you should lubricate it.
  2. (humorous) To cause someone to become drunk, especially to make them more sociable or talkative.
    • 2021, Robert A. Webster, Fossils:
      They listened with wonder and pride at their album as it played several times throughout the afternoon, with Cosmo lubricating them with beer and whiskey.
    • 2021, Edward Slingerland, Drunk: How We Sipped, Danced, and Stumbled Our Way to Civilization:
      At Göbekli Tepe, a site in what is now modern-day Turkey we'll talk about more below, hunter-gatherers convened regularly throughout the tenth to eighth millennia BCE to feast on gazelles, build circular structures, and erect enormous T-shaped limestone pillars carved with mysterious pictograms and animal forms–probably all while well-lubricated with beer.

to make slippery or smooth

lūbricāte

  1. second-person plural present active imperative of lūbricō

lubricate

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

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