Vibrate

How to spell vibrate

7 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce vibrate

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does vibrate mean?

1. verbTo move back and forth rapidly in tiny movements, often producing a buzzing or humming feeling.

Vibrate in a sentence

• The phone began to vibrate silently on the wooden desk.

• Heavy lorries make the windows vibrate as they pass the house.

Where does vibrate come from?

Language of origin: Latin

The word comes from the Latin verb vibrare, which meant 'to shake', 'to brandish', or 'to set in rapid, quivering motion', as one might shake a spear or flicker a tongue. The same root carried the idea of a quick, repeated tremor, and it survives in related English words such as 'vibrant' and 'vibration'. English took the verb up around the start of the 1600s, initially in fairly technical and scientific writing about oscillating motion, before it broadened into the everyday sense of trembling or buzzing. The spelling stays close to the Latin original, keeping the single 'b' and the 'br' cluster, so the main thing to remember is that there is no doubled consonant. Because the 'i' is pronounced as a long vowel here, it is easy to overthink, but the form maps neatly onto the Latin source.

How the word is built

• vibr- (from Latin vibrare: to shake)
• -ate (verb-forming suffix)