elongate

UK/ɪˈlɒŋ.ɡeɪt/US/əˈlɔŋˌɡeɪt/

verbC1Rare in speech; mostly a word you read · #15,014 of 15,258mostly writtenformal · an editor’s judgement

Other forms: elongated, elongating, elongates

To elongate is to make something longer. Stretched out along one direction.

The word is technical and formal, and it belongs to science, design and anatomy: elongated cells, an elongated shape, elongating a shadow. Everyday English says lengthen or stretch. The adjective elongated is far commoner than the verb and is used in description, particularly of faces, bodies and shadows. Its opposite is shorten, and the noun elongation appears mainly in engineering and biology.

Definitions of elongate

1verbelongateTo make or become longer.C1
“The shadows elongated as the sun dropped.”

Where it comes from

Elongate first meant to move away. Latin ēlongāre covered keeping something at a distance as well as prolonging it, and in Late Middle English elongate meant remote. The stretching sense won later.

Proto-Indo-European
*h₁éǵʰs
Latin
ēlongātus — having been stretched out, elongated; prolonged, protracted; having been kept aloof, removed
Middle English
elongat
English, today
elongate

Built from

elongate · Middle English — kept away; different or remote in nature
ēlongō · Latin — to prolong, protract; to keep aloof, remove; to depart, withdraw
longus · Latin — extended, long, prolonged; far

From Late Middle English elongat, elongate (“kept away; different or remote in nature”), borrowed from Latin ēlongātus (“having been stretched out, elongated; prolonged, protracted; having been kept aloof, removed”) + Middle English -at. Ēlongātus is the perfect passive participle of ēlongō (“to prolong, protract; to keep aloof, remove; to depart, withdraw”), from Latin ē- (a variant of ex-) + longus (“extended, long, prolonged; far”) (ultimately from Proto-Indo-European dlongʰos (“long”)) + -ō. a doublet of eloign. 2

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practised in A Man Called Ove, A Song of Ice and Fire

First appears in chapter 15 of A Man Called Ove.

Practise this word

elongate in the wild

The elongated tortoise (Indotestudo elongata) is a species of tortoise found in Southeast Asia and parts of South Asia.
Elongated tortoise
In contrast, primary growth occurs as a result of cell division at the tips of stems and roots, causing them to elongate and give rise to primary tissue.
Secondary growth
Early genera were almost circular to elongate-oval, with smooth or finely costate shells.
Terebratulida
Most gudgeons are elongate, bottom-dwelling fish, many of which live in rapids and other fast moving waters; however, many can be found in still waters.
Gudgeon (fish)
Palleon nasus, commonly known as the elongate leaf chameleon, is a species of chameleon endemic to Madagascar.
Palleon nasus

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From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.

Related words

the longus family

longitude

elongate — used about once every 159,543 pages · #15,014 · point at the bar for the others

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