"fluoridate" meaning in English

See fluoridate in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Verb

Forms: fluoridates [present, singular, third-person], fluoridating [participle, present], fluoridated [participle, past], fluoridated [past]
Etymology: Back-formation from fluoridation, equivalent to fluoride + -ate. Etymology templates: {{back-formation|en|fluoridation}} Back-formation from fluoridation, {{af|en|fluoride|-ate|id2=verb}} fluoride + -ate Head templates: {{en-verb}} fluoridate (third-person singular simple present fluoridates, present participle fluoridating, simple past and past participle fluoridated)
  1. (chemistry, dentistry, transitive) To add fluoride to something, especially to drinking water in order to reduce tooth decay. Tags: transitive Synonyms: fluoridize Derived forms: defluoridated, fluoridator, unfluoridated Related terms: fluoridation, fluoridization, fluorinate, fluorination

Inflected forms

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  "etymology_templates": [
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      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "fluoridation"
      },
      "expansion": "Back-formation from fluoridation",
      "name": "back-formation"
    },
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "fluoride",
        "3": "-ate",
        "id2": "verb"
      },
      "expansion": "fluoride + -ate",
      "name": "af"
    }
  ],
  "etymology_text": "Back-formation from fluoridation, equivalent to fluoride + -ate.",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "fluoridates",
      "tags": [
        "present",
        "singular",
        "third-person"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "fluoridating",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "present"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "fluoridated",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "fluoridated",
      "tags": [
        "past"
      ]
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  "head_templates": [
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      "args": {},
      "expansion": "fluoridate (third-person singular simple present fluoridates, present participle fluoridating, simple past and past participle fluoridated)",
      "name": "en-verb"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "verb",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English back-formations",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
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          "kind": "other",
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          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
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          "orig": "en:Chemistry",
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        {
          "kind": "other",
          "langcode": "en",
          "name": "Dentistry",
          "orig": "en:Dentistry",
          "parents": [],
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        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "langcode": "en",
          "name": "Fluorine",
          "orig": "en:Fluorine",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        }
      ],
      "derived": [
        {
          "word": "defluoridated"
        },
        {
          "word": "fluoridator"
        },
        {
          "word": "unfluoridated"
        }
      ],
      "examples": [
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          "bold_text_offsets": [
            [
              70,
              81
            ]
          ],
          "ref": "2025 March 28, “Utah becomes the first state to ban fluoride in public drinking water”, in CNN, sourced from Associated Press:",
          "text": "Out of the 484 Utah water systems that reported data in 2024, only 66 fluoridated their water, an Associated Press analysis showed. The largest was the state’s biggest city, Salt Lake City.",
          "type": "quotation"
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          "ref": "2025 March 29, Nadine Yousif, “Utah becomes first US state to ban fluoride in its water”, in BBC:",
          "text": "In England, about one in 10 people has fluoridated drinking water, though a programme has since been introduced to fluoridate water for 1.6 million people in north-east England.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
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        "To add fluoride to something, especially to drinking water in order to reduce tooth decay."
      ],
      "id": "en-fluoridate-en-verb-PNXMPDxf",
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        [
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        ],
        [
          "drinking water",
          "drinking water"
        ],
        [
          "tooth",
          "tooth"
        ],
        [
          "decay",
          "decay"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(chemistry, dentistry, transitive) To add fluoride to something, especially to drinking water in order to reduce tooth decay."
      ],
      "related": [
        {
          "word": "fluoridation"
        },
        {
          "word": "fluoridization"
        },
        {
          "word": "fluorinate"
        },
        {
          "word": "fluorination"
        }
      ],
      "synonyms": [
        {
          "word": "fluoridize"
        }
      ],
      "tags": [
        "transitive"
      ],
      "topics": [
        "chemistry",
        "dentistry",
        "medicine",
        "natural-sciences",
        "physical-sciences",
        "sciences"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "fluoridate"
}
{
  "derived": [
    {
      "word": "defluoridated"
    },
    {
      "word": "fluoridator"
    },
    {
      "word": "unfluoridated"
    }
  ],
  "etymology_templates": [
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        "2": "fluoridation"
      },
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        "3": "-ate",
        "id2": "verb"
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    }
  ],
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  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "fluoridates",
      "tags": [
        "present",
        "singular",
        "third-person"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "fluoridating",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "present"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "fluoridated",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "fluoridated",
      "tags": [
        "past"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {},
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    }
  ],
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  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "verb",
  "related": [
    {
      "word": "fluoridation"
    },
    {
      "word": "fluoridization"
    },
    {
      "word": "fluorinate"
    },
    {
      "word": "fluorination"
    }
  ],
  "senses": [
    {
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        "English entries with incorrect language header",
        "English lemmas",
        "English terms suffixed with -ate (verb)",
        "English terms with quotations",
        "English transitive verbs",
        "English verbs",
        "Pages with 1 entry",
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        "en:Dentistry",
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        },
        {
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              39,
              49
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            [
              39,
              50
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          "ref": "2025 March 29, Nadine Yousif, “Utah becomes first US state to ban fluoride in its water”, in BBC:",
          "text": "In England, about one in 10 people has fluoridated drinking water, though a programme has since been introduced to fluoridate water for 1.6 million people in north-east England.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To add fluoride to something, especially to drinking water in order to reduce tooth decay."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "chemistry",
          "chemistry"
        ],
        [
          "dentistry",
          "dentistry"
        ],
        [
          "fluoride",
          "fluoride"
        ],
        [
          "drinking water",
          "drinking water"
        ],
        [
          "tooth",
          "tooth"
        ],
        [
          "decay",
          "decay"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(chemistry, dentistry, transitive) To add fluoride to something, especially to drinking water in order to reduce tooth decay."
      ],
      "synonyms": [
        {
          "word": "fluoridize"
        }
      ],
      "tags": [
        "transitive"
      ],
      "topics": [
        "chemistry",
        "dentistry",
        "medicine",
        "natural-sciences",
        "physical-sciences",
        "sciences"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "fluoridate"
}

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This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2025-12-31 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2025-12-20 using wiktextract (e97c820 and 9905b1f). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.

If you use this data in academic research, please cite Tatu Ylonen: Wiktextract: Wiktionary as Machine-Readable Structured Data, Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC), pp. 1317-1325, Marseille, 20-25 June 2022. Linking to the relevant page(s) under https://kaikki.org would also be greatly appreciated.