gratulate

English

Etymology

From Latin grātulor.

Pronunciation

• (verb) IPA^(key): /ˈɡɹætjʊleɪt/, /ˈɡɹætʃəleɪt/

• Audio (Southern England)

  (file)

• (adjective) IPA^(key): /ˈɡɹætjʊlət/, /ˈɡɹætʃələt/

• Audio (Southern England)

  (file)

Verb

gratulate (third-person singular simple present gratulates, present participle gratulating, simple past and past participle gratulated)

1. (archaic) To express joy at (an event or situation).
   • c. 1588–1593 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Lamentable Tragedy of Titus Andronicus”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act I, scene i]:

     To gratify the good Andronicus, / And gratulate his safe return to Rome, / The people will accept whom he admits.

   • 1589–1592 (date written), Ch[ristopher] Marl[owe], The Tragicall History of D. Faustus. […], London: […] V[alentine] S[immes] for Thomas Bushell, published 1604, →OCLC, signature D2, verso:

     [H]is friends and neareſt companions, / Did gratulate his ſafetie with kinde words, […]

2. (archaic) To greet, welcome, salute.
   • c. 1593 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedy of Richard the Third: […]”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act IV, scene i]:

     Queen Elizabeth. […] Whither away? / Lady Anne. No farther than the Tower; and, as I guess, / Upon the like devotion as yourselves, / To gratulate the gentle princes there.

   • 1820, [Walter Scott], chapter XIII, in The Abbot. […], volume I, Edinburgh: […] [James Ballantyne & Co.] for Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, […]; and for Archibald Constable and Company, and John Ballantyne, […], →OCLC, page 276:

     “Regard not that, my brother,” answered Magdalen Græme; “the first successors of Saint Peter himself, were elected not in sunshine but in tempests—not in the halls of the Vatican, but in the subterranean vaults and dungeons of Heathen Rome—they were not gratulated with shouts and salvos of cannon-shot and of musquetry, and the display of artificial fire—no, my brother—but by the hoarse summons of Lictors and Prætors, who came to drag the Fathers of the Church to martyrdom. […]”

   • 1822, William Wordsworth, “Recovery” (Ecclesiastical Sketches/Sonnets, VII) in The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, London: Longman, Rees, Orme, Brown & Green, 1827, Volume 3, p. 33,^[1]

     […] when a storm hath ceased, the birds regain / Their cheerfulness, and busily retrim / Their nests, or chant a gratulating hymn / To the blue ether and bespangled plain;

   • 1881, James Thomson, “Two Sonnets,” II, in Vane’s Story, Weddah and Om-el-Bonain, and Other Poems, London: Reeves & Turner, p. 166,^[2]

     Striving to sing glad songs, I but attain / Wild discords sadder than Grief’s saddest tune / As if an owl with his harsh screech should strain / To over-gratulate a thrush of June.

Adjective

gratulate (comparative more gratulate, superlative most gratulate)

1. (obsolete) Worthy of gratulation.
   • c. 1603–1604 (date written), William Shakespeare, “Measure for Measure”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act V, scene i]:

     Thanks, good friend Escalus, for thy much goodness:
     There’s more behind that is more gratulate.

Anagrams

• glutarate

Esperanto

Adverb

gratulate

1. present adverbial passive participle of gratuli

Latin

Participle

grātulāte

1. vocative masculine singular of grātulātus