lubricate
verb/ˈluːbrɪkeɪt/
Etymology Borrowed from Latin lūbricātus, perfect passive participle of lūbricō (“make slippery”) (see -ate (verb-forming suffix) for more), from lūbricus (“slippery”). Ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *slewbʰ- (“slip, slide”).
1
To make slippery or smooth (normally to minimize friction) by applying a lubricant.
- If your bicycle chain is squeaking you should lubricate it.
2
Humorous To cause someone to become drunk, especially to make them more sociable or talkative.
- They listened with wonder and pride at their album as it played several times throughout the afternoon, with Cosmo lubricating them with beer and whiskey.2021, Robert A. Webster, Fossils:
- At Göbekli Tepe, a site in what is now modern-day Turkey we'll talk about more below, hunter-gatherers convened regularly throughout the tenth to eighth millennia BCE to feast on gazelles, build circular structures, and erect enormous T-shaped limestone pillars carved with mysterious pictograms and animal forms–probably all while well-lubricated with beer.2021, Edward Slingerland, Drunk: How We Sipped, Danced, and Stumbled Our Way to Civilization:
- Derived terms
- lube, lubricant, lubrication, lubricative, lubricator, lubricin, mislubricate, overlubricate, relubricate, underlubricate
- Related terms
- lubricity