Relocate

How to spell relocate

8 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce relocate

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does relocate mean?

1. verbTo move to a new place, especially a new home or place of business.

Relocate in a sentence

• The firm offered to relocate the entire team to its new headquarters.

• They decided to relocate closer to her elderly parents.

Where does relocate come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word is built from Latin parts that English assembled in the modern era. The core is the Latin noun locus, meaning simply 'a place' or 'a position', the same root that gives us 'location', 'locate', and 'local'. The prefix re- carries the sense of 'again' or 'back', so relocate literally means 'to place again' or 'to set in a new position'. The verb 'locate' itself came into English in the seventeenth century from the Latin locare, 'to place', and 'relocate' followed as a natural extension, becoming common in the nineteenth century to describe moving people or businesses to a fresh site. Because the spelling rests on the tidy stem 'locate' with a plain 're-' in front, the trap is mild: the single c and the silent final e do all the quiet work.

How the word is built

• re- (again)
• loc (from Latin locus: place)
• -ate (verb suffix)