nauseate
Americanverb (used with object)
verb (used without object)
verb
-
(tr) to arouse feelings of disgust or revulsion in
-
to feel or cause to feel sick
Usage
What does nauseate mean? To nauseate means to cause nausea—a feeling of sickness in your stomach, as if you might vomit.The word nauseated is commonly used as an adjective to mean feeling nausea. The adjective nauseous is more commonly used to mean the same thing.The adjective nauseating means causing nausea (nauseous can also be used to mean this, but that’s much less common).The word nausea can also be used in a figurative way meaning a feeling of disgust, revulsion, or repulsion, and nauseate can mean to make someone feel this, meaning the same thing as the verb disgust, as in Their cruelty nauseates me. Much less commonly, nauseate can mean to become nauseous, as in I nauseate whenever I ride a rollercoaster. Example: I’m not sure what nauseated me more—the disgusting food or the server’s disgusting comments.
Other Word Forms
- nauseating adjective
- nauseatingly adverb
- nauseation noun
Etymology
Origin of nauseate
First recorded in 1630–40, nauseate is from the Latin word nauseātus (past participle of nauseāre “to be seasick”). See nausea, -ate 1
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
There is a contingent of Mexicans who find the whole thing a bit nauseating, another example of businesses latching onto and capitalizing on an internet meme.
By the end, both of us felt slightly nauseated, though not by the food.
It’s not enough to save the aesthetic of the entire film, though, which is somehow both gray and nauseating.
From Los Angeles Times
And we started running to our car, because the smell was just nauseating.”
From Los Angeles Times
“Remember what you want to avoid: the nauseating feeling of having wasted a block of time,” she writes.
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
