obligate

English

Pronunciation

verb

• (Received Pronunciation) enPR: ŏbʹlĭ-gāt', IPA^(key): /ˈɒb.lɪˌɡeɪt/

  • Audio (Southern England):

    (file)

• (General American, Canada) enPR: ŏʹblĭ-gāt', IPA^(key): /ˈɑ.blɪˌɡeɪt/

adjective

• (Received Pronunciation) enPR: ŏbʹlĭ-gĭt, IPA^(key): /ˈɒb.lɪ.ɡɪt/

  • Audio (Southern England):

    (file)

• (General American, Canada) enPR: ŏʹblĭ-gĭt, IPA^(key): /ˈɑ.blɪ.ɡɪt/
• Hyphenation: ob‧li‧gate

Etymology 1

First attested in 1533; borrowed from Latin obligātus, perfect passive participle of obligō, see -ate (verb-forming suffix). Doublet of oblige, taken through French.

Verb

obligate (third-person singular simple present obligates, present participle obligating, simple past and past participle obligated)

1. (transitive) To bind, compel, constrain, or oblige by a social, legal, or moral tie.
   • 2023 December 27, Richard Foster, “New rail freight terminal leads the way”, in RAIL, number 999, page 39:

     That progress has taken over ten years and £20 million to bring to fruition. But, as Mands explains, the journey has been one that HSG has been almost obligated to undertake. "First and foremost, this is an environmental project," she says.

2. (transitive, Canada, US, Scotland) To cause to be grateful or indebted; to oblige.
3. (transitive, Canada, US, Scotland) To commit (money, for example) in order to fulfill an obligation.

Usage notes

In non-legal usage, almost exclusively used in the passive, in form “obligated to X” where ‘X’ is a verb infinitive or noun phrase, as in “obligated to pay”. Further, it is now in standard use only in American English and some dialects such as Scottish, having disappeared from standard British English by the 20th century, being replaced by obliged (it was previously used in the 17th through 19th centuries).

Synonyms

• (force, compel): See also: force: Synonyms

Derived terms

• obligatee
• obligation
• obligator
• obligatory

Translations

to bind, compel, or constrain by a social, legal, or moral tie

• Bulgarian: задължавам (bg) (zadǎlžavam)
• Finnish: velvoittaa (fi)
• Greek: υποχρεώνω (el) (ypochreóno)
• Hindi: बाध्य (hi) (bādhya)
• Latin: obligō, teneo (la)
• Polish: zobowiązywać (pl) impf, zobowiązać (pl) pf
• Portuguese: obrigação (pt)
• Spanish: obligar (es)

to cause to be grateful or indebted; to oblige

to commit (money, for example) in order to fulfill an obligation

• Portuguese: obrigação (pt)

Etymology 2

Partly inherited from Middle English obligat(e) (“bound (by any obligation), obliged”), partly directly borrowed from Latin obligātus, see Etymology 1, -ate (adjective-forming suffix) and -ate (noun-forming suffix) for more.

Adjective

obligate (comparative more obligate, superlative most obligate)

1. (biology) Requiring a (specified) way of life, habitat, etc. [from 19th c.]
   • 2018, Tim Flannery, Europe: The First 100 Million Years, Penguin, published 2019, page 171:

     [A]nalysis of the chemical composition of their bones reveals that they were obligate carnivores.

2. Indispensable; essential; necessary; obligatory; mandatory; unavoidably invoked.

   Synonyms: see Thesaurus:compulsory

   Antonyms: see Thesaurus:optional

   In addition to being the obligate food source for monarch caterpillars, milkweeds also provide abundant nectar for the adult butterflies.

   In some languages such signaling is optional, whereas in others it is obligate.

   • 2009, C. Kenneth Dodd Jr., Amphibian Ecology and Conservation: A Handbook of Techniques, page 304:

     Aquatic sites constitute obligate habitat for some species, and are critical breeding habitat for species with complex life cycles involving aquatic egg or larval development.

   • 2012, Ulrich Sommer, Plankton Ecology: Succession in Plankton Communities, page 351:

     Unlike for phagotrophic flagellates, bacteria serve as a facultative rather than an obligate food source for crustacean zooplankton.

   • 2013, K.C. Marshall, editor, Advances in Microbial Ecology, volume 11, page 472:

     Light is the obligate energy source for the phototrophic microbes constructing these benthic mats

3. (obsolete) Bound by oath, law or duty. [up to 17th c.]
   • 1559-1566, John Knox, The History of the Reformation in Scotland, book 1, page 25:

     The Law sayith,
     Mack a mendis for thy synne.
     The Father of Heaven is wraith wyth thee.
     Quhair is thy rychteousnes, goodnes, and satisfactioun ?
     Thou art bound and obligat unto me, [to] the devill, and [to] hell.

Derived terms

• nonobligate
• obligate carrier
• obligately

Translations

Able to exist or survive only in a particular environment or by assuming a particular role

• Norwegian:

  Bokmål: obligat, tvungen, uten valgmulighet

• Russian: облига́тный (ru) m (obligátnyj)

Absolutely indispensable; essential

• Bulgarian: задължен (bg) (zadǎlžen), неотменен (bg) (neotmenen)
• Finnish: obligaatti, välttämätön (fi)
• Portuguese: exigido (pt) m, essencial (pt)

Noun

obligate (plural obligates)

1. (biology) An obligate organism. [from 20th c.]

Related terms

• oblige
• obligee
• obliger
• obligor

References

• “obligate”, in OneLook Dictionary Search.
• William Dwight Whitney, Benjamin E[li] Smith, editors (1911), “obligate”, in The Century Dictionary […], New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., →OCLC.

Esperanto

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /obliˈɡate/
• Hyphenation: o‧bli‧ga‧te
• Rhymes: -ate

Verb

obligate

1. present adverbial passive participle of obligi

German

Pronunciation

• Audio (Germany (Berlin)):

  (file)

Adjective

obligate

1. inflection of obligat:
   1. strong/mixed nominative/accusative feminine singular
   2. strong nominative/accusative plural
   3. weak nominative all-gender singular
   4. weak accusative feminine/neuter singular

Latin

Participle

obligāte

1. vocative masculine singular of obligātus

Spanish

Verb

obligate

1. second-person singular voseo imperative of obligar combined with te