Other forms: contributed, contributing, contributes
To contribute is to add your share to a joint effort. Contribute to the fund, contribute an article, everybody contributed.
The preposition is to. Contribute to also means to be one of the causes of something: contributed to the accident, contributing factor. That second sense is standard in reports and inquiries, where it carefully stops short of saying caused. Note contribution and contributor; and that the stress falls on the second syllable, con-TRIB-ute, though first-syllable stress is increasingly heard.
1verbcontributeTo add your share to a joint effort.
“Everyone contributed a dish to the neighbourhood picnic.”
2verbcausesTo be one of the causes of something.
“Tiredness contributed to the accident without causing it.”
contribute is an adding of a share.
Latin contribuere is con-, together, plus tribuere, to grant or allot — from tribus, a tribe, because the earliest allotting was among the Roman tribes. Tribute, attribute and distribute are the same verb.
Proto-Indo-European
*tréyes
Proto-Italic
*trēs
Latin
contribūtus
English, today
contribute
Built from
From Latin contribūtus, perfect passive participle of contribuō (“to bring together; to unite”), from con + tribuō, from tribus (“tribe”), derived from trēs (“three”), from Proto-Italic trēs, from Proto-Indo-European tréyes.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA