habituate

Valid in Scrabble

Scrabble points
14
Words With Friends
15
Letters
9
Pronunciation
/həˈbɪtju.eɪt/
See all 2 pronunciations
/həˈbɪtju.eɪt/ · /həˈbɪt͡ʃu.eɪt/

Definition of habituate

2 senses · 1 part of speech · etymology included

verb

  1. To make accustomed; to accustom; to familiarize.
    “1644, Kenelm Digby, Two Treatises, Paris, “The First Treatise declaring the nature and operations of bodies,” Chapter 36, p. 311, […] it was the custome of our English doggs (who were habituated vnto a colder clyme) to runne into the sea in the heate of summer […]”
    “[B]y often praying in ſuch manner and in all circumſtances, vve ſhall habituate our ſouls to prayer, by making it the buſineſs of many leſſer portions of our time: and by thruſting in betvveen all our other imployments, it vvill make every thing reliſh of Religion, and by degrees turn all into its nature.”
    “1694, John Tillotson, Sermon 2, in The Works of the Most Reverend Dr. John Tillotson, London: B. Aylmer, 1696, p. 35, Men are usually first corrupted by bad counsel and company […] ; next they habituate themselves to their vicious practices […]”
    “It seems so very important to ground young persons in the belief that they will not inevitably meet in this world with reward and success according to their merit, but to habituate them to expect even the most virtuous attempts to be often, though not always disappointed, that I am in danger of tautology on this point.”
    “My first quarter at Lowood seemed an age; and not the golden age either; it comprised an irksome struggle with difficulties in habituating myself to new rules and unwonted tasks.”
See all 2 definitions

verb

  1. To make accustomed; to accustom; to familiarize.
    “1644, Kenelm Digby, Two Treatises, Paris, “The First Treatise declaring the nature and operations of bodies,” Chapter 36, p. 311, […] it was the custome of our English doggs (who were habituated vnto a colder clyme) to runne into the sea in the heate of summer […]”
    “[B]y often praying in ſuch manner and in all circumſtances, vve ſhall habituate our ſouls to prayer, by making it the buſineſs of many leſſer portions of our time: and by thruſting in betvveen all our other imployments, it vvill make every thing reliſh of Religion, and by degrees turn all into its nature.”
    “1694, John Tillotson, Sermon 2, in The Works of the Most Reverend Dr. John Tillotson, London: B. Aylmer, 1696, p. 35, Men are usually first corrupted by bad counsel and company […] ; next they habituate themselves to their vicious practices […]”
    “It seems so very important to ground young persons in the belief that they will not inevitably meet in this world with reward and success according to their merit, but to habituate them to expect even the most virtuous attempts to be often, though not always disappointed, that I am in danger of tautology on this point.”
    “My first quarter at Lowood seemed an age; and not the golden age either; it comprised an irksome struggle with difficulties in habituating myself to new rules and unwonted tasks.”
  2. (obsolete)To settle as an inhabitant.
    “After the Conquests made by Caesar upon Gaul, and the nearer Parts of Germany […] great Numbers of Germans and Gauls resorted to the Roman Armies and to the City it self, and habituated themselves there, as many Spaniards, Syrians, Graecians had done before upon the Conquest of those Countries.”

Definitions from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA.

Etymology

Inherited from Middle English habituat(e) (“physically established or present”), borrowed from Late Latin habituātus, perfect passive participle of habituō (“to bring into a condition or habit of body”), see -ate (verb-forming suffix).

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