Simulated

How to spell simulated

9 letters · 4 syllables

How to pronounce simulated

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does simulated mean?

1. verbImitated or reproduced the conditions or behaviour of something, usually for testing, training, or study.
2. adjectiveMade to imitate something real; artificial rather than genuine.

Simulated in a sentence

• verb

  The engineers simulated a power outage to check that the backup generators would start.

• adjective

  The budget sofa was covered in simulated leather to keep the price down.

• verb

  The software simulated thousands of traffic patterns before the new junction was built.

• adjective

  Pilots train in a simulated cockpit that responds exactly like the real aircraft.

Where does simulated come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word descends from the Latin verb simulare, which meant 'to make like, to copy, or to imitate', and that verb was built directly on the adjective similis, meaning 'like' or 'similar'. The same similis root sits behind a whole family of English words, including 'similar', 'assemble', and 'resemble', so the idea of likeness runs through all of them. Latin simulare passed into English through the past participle simulatus, and by the early 1600s English speakers were using 'simulate' to mean putting on a false appearance or feigning something. The modern technical sense, recreating a real process or environment artificially for study or training, grew strongly in the twentieth century alongside computing and engineering. Remembering that the heart of the word is 'simil', the same chunk inside 'similar', helps fix the single l and the i-then-u order that writers sometimes scramble.

How the word is built

• simul- (from simulare: to imitate, from similis 'like')
• -ate (verb suffix)
• -ed (past tense / participle)