micturate

English

Etymology

Borrowed from Latin micturīre (“to have the urge to urinate”), from mictūrus, from meiō (“urinate”), from Proto-Indo-European *h₃meyǵʰ- (“to urinate”). Though borrowed from Latin in Modern English (in the mid 19th century), the root of this word was present in Old English in the word mīgan (and whence Early Middle English miȝen), which simply meant “to urinate”. See: Mingere and meiere: urination.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈmɪkt͡ʃəɹeɪt/

Verb

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.

Derived terms

• micturient
• micturition

Related terms

• retromingent

Translations

urinate — see urinate

Further reading

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