Validate

How to spell validate

8 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce validate

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does validate mean?

1. verbTo check or confirm that something is correct, genuine, or legally acceptable.
2. verbTo recognise and affirm that someone's feelings or experiences are reasonable and worthwhile.

Validate in a sentence

• The inspector will validate your ticket before you board the train.

• A good manager will validate the concerns of the team before responding.

• The software runs a quick test to validate each entry in the form.

• She wanted her friend to validate how stressful the move had been.

Where does validate come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word grows from the Latin validus, meaning 'strong', 'powerful' or 'sound', which itself came from the verb valere, 'to be strong' or 'to be worth'. The same valere root gave English a whole family of relatives, including 'value', 'valour', 'invalid' and the farewell 'valediction'. Latin scholars formed validare, 'to make strong', and from its past participle validatus English drew 'validate' in the seventeenth century, first in the sense of making something legally firm or binding. From that legal core the meaning broadened to confirming that data, a ticket, or a theory is correct and acceptable, and later, in everyday speech, to acknowledging that a person's feelings are reasonable. Remembering that the heart of the word is plain 'valid' helps keep the spelling steady, since you simply add the verb ending -ate.

How the word is built

• valid- (from validus: strong, sound)
• -ate (verb suffix)