articulate

verb

1. (transitive)To make clear or effective.
2. (ambitransitive)To speak clearly; to enunciate.

   “I wish he’d articulate his words more clearly.”

3. (transitive)To explain; to put into words; to make something specific.

   “I like this painting, but I can’t articulate why.”

   “It’s not just that Trump’s voters are articulating the same ideas. They’re framing issues in the same way, pointing to the same boogeymen and even using the same words.”

4. (transitive)To bend or hinge something at intervals, or to allow or build something so that it can bend.

   “an articulated bus”

5. (transitive)To attack a note, as by tonguing, slurring, bowing, etc.

   “Articulate that passage heavily.”

6. (intransitive)To form a joint or connect by joints.

   “The lower jaw articulates with the skull at the temporomandibular joint.”

7. (obsolete)To treat or make terms.

   “Send us to Rome / The best, with whom we may articulate / For their own good and ours.”

adj

1. Clear; effective.
2. Speaking in a clear and effective manner; having both good articulation and good elocution.

   “She’s a bright, articulate young woman.”

3. Consisting of segments united by joints.

   “jointed articulate animals”

   “The robot arm was articulate in two directions.”

4. Distinctly marked off.

   “an articulate period in history”

5. (obsolete)Expressed in articles or in separate items or particulars.

   “articulate sounds”

6. (obsolete)Related to human speech, as distinct from the vocalisation of animals.

   “Brutes cannot form articulate Sounds, cannot articulate the Sounds of the Voice, excepting some few Birds, as the Parrot, Pye, &c.”

7. (obsolete)Articulated (all senses).

   “Theſe things indeede you haue articulate(d), Proclaim'd at Market Croſſes, read in Churches, To face the Garment of Rebellion VVith ſome fine colour, that may pleaſe the eye Of fickle Changelings, and poore Diſcontents, Which gape, and rub the Elbovv at the nevves Of hurly burly Innouation : And neuer yet did Inſurrection vvant Such vvater-colours, to impaint his cauſe : Nor moody Beggars, ſtaruing for a time Of pell-mell hauocke, and confuſion,”

noun

1. An animal of the subkingdom Articulata.

   “They considered articulates to be pre-adapted for an eleutherozoic existence because they possess muscular arms which are potentially of value in crawling and swimming, as in comatulids.”