penetrate

From Latin penētrātus, past participle of penētrō (“to put, set, or place within, enter, pierce, penetrate”), from penes (“within, with”) by analogy to intrō (“to go in, enter”).

• (UK) IPA^(key): /ˈpɛnɪtɹeɪt/
• (US) IPA^(key): /ˈpɛnɪˌtɹeɪt/, /ˈpɛnəˌtɹeɪt/

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• Hyphenation: pen‧e‧trate

penetrate (third-person singular simple present penetrates, present participle penetrating, simple past and past participle penetrated)

1. To enter into; to make way into the interior of; to pierce.

   Light penetrates darkness.

   • 1879, Th Du Moncel, The Telephone, the Microphone and the Phonograph, Harper, page 166:

     He takes the prepared charcoal used by artists, brings it to a white heat, and suddenly plunges it in a bath of mercury, of which the globules instantly penetrate the pores of charcoal, and may be said to metallize it.

2. (figuratively) To achieve understanding of, despite some obstacle; to comprehend; to understand.

   I could not penetrate Burke's opaque rhetoric.

   • Ray

     things which here were too subtile for us to penetrate

3. To affect profoundly through the senses or feelings; to move deeply.

   to penetrate one's heart with pity

   • M. Arnold

     The translator of Homer should penetrate himself with a sense of the plainness and directness of Homer's style.

   (Can we find and add a quotation of Shakespeare to this entry?)

4. To infiltrate an enemy to gather intelligence.
5. To insert the penis into an opening, such as a vagina or anus. (Can we add an example for this sense?)

• penetration
• penetrable

• penetrate in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.
• penetrate in The Century Dictionary, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911.
• penetrate at OneLook Dictionary Search

• IPA^(key): /penetˈrate/

penetrate

1. present adverbial passive participle of penetri

penetrate

1. second-person plural present indicative of penetrare
2. second-person plural imperative of penetrare
3. feminine plural of penetrato

penētrāte

1. second-person plural present active imperative of penētrō