urinate

Etymology

It is borrowed from Medieval Latin ūrīnātus, the past participle of ūrīnō (“to pass water”),^{[2][3][4][5][6]} from Latin ūrīna (“urine”),^[5][3][4][7] the source of urine.^[8][5] Etymonline allows that the English verb may instead be a back-formation from urination.^[8] The Latin noun is related to Ancient Greek οὖρον (oûron, “urine”),^[5][8] and Etymonline traces both to Proto-Indo-European *ur-.^[8]

Earliest recorded meaning

To discharge urine: 1599, in A. M.'s translation of O. Gaebelkhover's Boock of Physicke.^[5][3] Dictionary.com dates it to 1590–1600, and Etymonline to the 1590s.^[2][8]

Semantic evolution

Before this, the medical verb was simply urine, found in Chauliac in the early 15th century.^[8] The noun urination is also from the late 16th century.^[6] The transitive use "to wet or saturate with urine" followed in 1768, and is now rare,^[5][6] and "to pass something, such as blood, in or like urine" is recorded from 1915.^[5][3]

Timeline

• 1599 – intransitive, to discharge urine.^[5][3]
• 1768 – to wet or saturate with urine.^[5]
• 1915 – to pass something in the manner of urine.^[5]

Meanings

Verb

1. To discharge urine; to micturate: The vet said the old dog needs to urinate more often.^[9][3][5]
2. To pass something as or in the urine: The patient urinated a dark fluid.^[3][5][6]
3. (rare) To wet with urine.^[3][5][6]

Word family

• urination
• urinative

Related words

• urine
• urinal
• urea
• urinary

Usage notes

The OED also has an obsolete urinate recorded only in 1623, in H. Cockeram's The English Dictionarie, from Latin ūrīnor,^[5] which according to Klein meant to plunge into water.^[4]

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
3. ^ a b c d e f g h Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
4. ^ a b c Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ a b c d e Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
8. ^ a b c d e f Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
9. ^ Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins