Other forms: located, locating, locates
To locate is to find where something is. Locate the fault, locate the missing files, hard to locate.
It also means to put something in a place — the factory is located in the north — and that passive use is so common that plain writing guides tell you to cut it and say is in. The Latin locus means a place. Note local and location beside it.
1verblocateTo find where something is.
“The engineers finally located the leak under the kitchen floor.”
2verbplaceTo place something somewhere.
“The company decided to locate its new factory near the port.”
locate is a finding, or a placing.
Latin locare means to place, from locus, a place. Local, locus and lieu come from the same place.
Proto-Indo-European
*stel-
Latin
locātus
English, today
locate
Built from
Latin locātus, perfect passive participle of locō (“to place”) (see -ate), from locus (“place”) + -ō. Cognate with French louer; see also local and lieu.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA