micturate

English

Etymology

First attested in 1842; irregular back-formation from micturition on the basis of -ate (verb-forming suffix), from Latin micturiō (“to urinate”).

Related to Old English mīgan (whence Early Middle English miȝen (“to urinate”) See also Mingere and meiere: urination.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈmɪkt͡ʃəɹeɪt/

• Audio (Southern England):

  (file)

Verb

micturate (third-person singular simple present micturates, present participle micturating, simple past and past participle micturated)

1. (intransitive, physiology, formal) To urinate.

   Synonyms: see Thesaurus:urinate

   • 1997, David Foster Wallace, “David Lynch keeps his head”, in A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again, Kindle edition, Little, Brown Book Group:

     David Lynch himself uses the down-time between takes to confer with A.D.’s and producers and to drink coffee and/or micturate into the undergrowth, and to smoke American Spirits and walk pensively around the Mercedeses and camera truck’s technical fray, sometimes holding one hand to his cheek in a way that recalls Jack Benny.

   • 1998, Joel and Ethan Coen, The Big Lebowski:

     Jeffrey Lebowski: So every time -- I just want to understand this, sir -- every time a rug is micturated upon in this fair city, I have to compensate the (owner) --?

Derived terms

• micturator

Related terms

• micturient
• micturition

Related terms

• retromingent

Translations

urinate — see urinate

Further reading

• “micturate”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.