- (transitive) to discover the position, situation, or whereabouts of; find
- (transitive; often passive) to situate or place: located on the edge of the city
- (intransitive) to become established or settled
WordReference Random House Learner's Dictionary of American English © 2026
lo•cate /ˈloʊkeɪt, loʊˈkeɪt/USA pronunciation
v., -cat•ed, -cat•ing.
v.
lo•cat•er, lo•ca•tor, n. [countable]See -loc-.
WordReference Random House Unabridged Dictionary of American English © 2026v.
- to identify or discover the location of;
find:[~ + object]to locate a missing book. - to establish (one's business or home) in a locality;
settle: [~ + object]They located their offices downtown.[no object]decided to locate in New Mexico. - to assign a particular location to, as by knowledge or opinion:[~ + object]Some scholars locate the Garden of Eden in Babylonia.
lo•cat•er, lo•ca•tor, n. [countable]See -loc-.
lo•cate
(lō′kāt, lō kāt′),USA pronunciation v., -cat•ed, -cat•ing.
v.t.
v.i.
lo•cat′a•ble, adj.
v.t.
- to identify or discover the place or location of:to locate the bullet wound.
- to set, fix, or establish in a position, situation, or locality;
place;
settle:to locate our European office in Paris. - to assign or ascribe a particular location to (something), as by knowledge or opinion:Some scholars locate the Garden of Eden in Babylonia.
- to survey and enter a claim to a tract of land;
take possession of land.
v.i.
- to establish one's business or residence in a place;
settle.
- Latin locātus, past participle of locāre to put in a given position, place; see locus, -ate1
- 1645–55, American.
Collins Concise English Dictionary © HarperCollins Publishers::
locate /ləʊˈkeɪt/ vb
'located' also found in these entries (note: many are not synonyms or translations):
afterburner
- array
- bear
- Berchtesgaden
- borderland
- brownfield
- Cahokia Mounds
- Cape Peninsula
- City
- corner
- cottage country
- cowbell
- dexter
- dextral
- end of steel
- Eris
- extramural
- Federal Government
- flank
- fore
- foreign
- ganglion
- greenfield
- hard
- hinterland
- Holyrood
- inland
- inner
- innermost
- internet
- kasbah
- left-hand
- locate
- location
- lot
- Megiddo
- meridional
- middle
- off-Broadway
- outer
- outport
- Palestine
- Petra
- pit
- Pluto
- point
- quasar
- remote
- retro-
- Réunion