librate

English

Etymology 1

From Medieval Latin lībrāta, from Latin lībra (“pound”).

Noun

librate (plural librates)

1. (now historical) A piece of land having a value of one pound per year.

Etymology 2

A librating molecule.

From the participle stem of Latin lībrāre, from lībra (“a balance”).

Verb

librate (third-person singular simple present librates, present participle librating, simple past and past participle librated)

1. (intransitive) To oscillate (like the beam of a balance).
   • 2002 October 18, S. J. Peale, Man Hoi Lee, “A Primordial Origin of the Laplace Relation Among the Galilean Satellites”, in Science, volume 298, number 5593, →DOI, page 594:

     The currently observed orbital resonances at the 2:1 mean motion commensurabilities involving Io-Europa and Europa-Ganymede are such that the resonance variables $\theta _{1}=\lambda _{1}-2\lambda _{2}+\omega _{1}$ and $\theta _{3}=\lambda _{2}-2\lambda _{3}+\omega _{2}$ librate about 0° and $\theta _{2}=\lambda _{1}-2\lambda _{2}+\omega _{2}$ librates about 180°, all with small amplitude.

   • 1796, William Cliffton, The Group:

     Their parts all librate on too nice a beam.

2. (intransitive) To be poised; to balance oneself.
   • 1791, Erasmus Darwin, The Economy of Vegetation, J. Johnson, page 138:

     Her playful Sea-horse […] His watery way with waving volutes wins, / Or listening librates on unmoving fins.

3. (obsolete, transitive) To place in a balance; to weigh.

Related terms

• libration

Translations

to oscillate

• German: ausschwingen, pendeln (de), ins Gleichgewicht bringen, einschwingen (de), oszillieren (de)

to be poised, to balance

• German: balancieren (de), ausgleichen (de), glattstellen (de), verharren (de), schweben (de)

References

• OED 2nd edition 1989

Anagrams

• altbier, betrail, tablier, triable, trilabe

Italian

Etymology 1

Verb

librate

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

Etymology 2

Participle

librate f pl

1. feminine plural of librato

Anagrams

• blateri, libertà, retabli, ribalte, tribale

Latin

Participle

lībrāte

1. vocative masculine singular of lībrātus

References

• “librate”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press

Spanish

Verb

librate

1. second-person singular voseo imperative of librar combined with te