Dedicate

How to spell dedicate

8 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce dedicate

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does dedicate mean?

1. verbTo give one's time, energy, or resources wholly to a particular task, person, or purpose.
2. verbTo formally address or assign a creative work, building, or event to someone in their honour.

Dedicate in a sentence

• She chose to dedicate her evenings to finishing the manuscript.

• The author wanted to dedicate the novel to her late mother.

• The charity asked volunteers to dedicate a few hours each week.

• The council voted to dedicate the new park to the town's veterans.

Where does dedicate come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word comes from the Latin dedicare, which meant 'to proclaim, consecrate, or set apart for a sacred purpose'. It was built from the prefix de-, here adding the sense of 'completely' or 'formally', and the verb dicare, meaning 'to proclaim or announce', a close relative of dicere, 'to say', which also gave us 'dictate' and 'diction'. In Roman use, you would dedicate a temple or altar by formally declaring it given over to a god. English took the word in during the late 1400s, first for the religious act of consecration, then broadening to mean devoting one's time, energy, or a written work to a person or cause. The buried root dic, 'to declare', is a handy spelling cue: the middle is dic, not 'dik' or 'dec', so think of the related 'dictate'.

How the word is built

• de- (down, completely)
• dic (to proclaim, declare)
• -ate (verb suffix)