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”).

• IPA^(key): /ˈpɛnɪtɹeɪt/, /ˈpɛnətɹeɪt/

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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.

   • 1691, John Ray, The Wisdom of God Manifested in the Works of the Creation. […], London: […] Samuel Smith, […], OCLC 1179804186:

     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

   • 1867, Matthew Arnold, On the Study of Celtic Literature

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

   • 1611 April (first recorded performance), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Cymbeline”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, OCLC 606515358, [Act II, scene iii]:

     I am advised to give her music o' mornings; they say it will penetrate

4. To infiltrate an enemy to gather intelligence.
5. To insert the penis into an opening, such as a vagina, mouth or anus.

   a male elephant comes up and penetrates the female

6. (chess) To move a piece past the defending pieces of one's opponent.

The sexual sense is a modern innovation rarely used in older writing. In modern usage, the unaccompanied word penetrate and its derivatives often refer to sexual penetration, outside of certain set phrases such as market penetration.

• overpenetrate
• 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. inflection of penetrare:
   1. second-person plural present indicative
   2. second-person plural imperative

penetrate f pl

1. feminine plural of penetrato

penetrāte

1. second-person plural present active imperative of penetrō