flagellate

verb

• enPR: flă′-jə-lāt′
• (US) IPA^(key): /ˈflæ.d͡ʒəˌleɪt/

• Audio (Texas):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -æd͡ʒəleɪt

adjective; noun

• enPR: flə-jĕ′-lət
• (US) IPA^(key): /fləˈd͡ʒɛ.lət/

• Audio (Southern US):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɛlət

First attested in 1623; borrowed from Latin flagellātus perfect passive participle of flagellō (“to whip, flog”), see -ate (verb-forming suffix).

flagellate (third-person singular simple present flagellates, present participle flagellating, simple past and past participle flagellated)

1. (transitive) To whip or scourge.
   • 1976 December 11, David Holland, “A Conversation With Maitresse”, in Gay Community News, volume 4, number 24, page 13:

     Red welts rising from a flagellated back

2. (transitive, idiomatic) To harshly chide or chastise, to reprimand.
3. (transitive) Of a spermatozoon, to move its tail back and forth.
   • 1981, William Irwin Thompson, The Time Falling Bodies Take to Light: Mythology, Sexuality and the Origins of Culture, London: Rider/Hutchinson & Co., page 63:

     The gigantic egg sits, and the frantic and tiny sperm flagellates its tail to cross vast distances on its quest for dissolution in the huge egg.

First attested in 1867; from flagellum +‎ -ate (adjective-forming suffix) as well as Latin flagellum +‎ -ate. The noun was substantivized from the adjective, see -ate (noun-forming suffix).

flagellate (comparative more flagellate, superlative most flagellate)

1. Resembling a whip.
2. (biology) Having flagella.

• flagellum

flagellate (plural flagellates)

1. (biology) Any organism that has flagella.

flagellate

1. inflection of flagellare:
   1. second-person plural present indicative
   2. second-person plural imperative

flagellate f pl

1. feminine plural of flagellato

flagellāte

1. second-person plural present active imperative of flagellō