Webster
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Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary · 1913

Communicate

Com·mu′ni·cate (·kāt), v. t. [imp. & p. p. Communicated; p. pr. & vb. n. Communicating.] [L. communicatus, p. p. of communicare to communicate, fr. communis common. See Commune, v. i.] 1. To share in common; to participate in. [Obs.]

To thousands that communicate our loss. B. Jonson

2. To impart; to bestow; to convey; as, to communicate a disease or a sensation; to communicate motion by means of a crank.

Where God is worshiped, there he communicates his blessings and holy influences. Jer. Taylor.

3. To make known; to recount; to give; to impart; as, to communicate information to any one.

4. To administer the communion to. [R.]

She [the church] . . . may communicate him. Jer. Taylor.

☞ This verb was formerly followed by with before the person receiving, but now usually takes to after it.

He communicated those thoughts only with the Lord Digby. Clarendon.

Syn. — To impart; bestow; confer; reveal; disclose; tell; announce; recount; make known. — To Communicate, Impart, Reveal. Communicate is the more general term, and denotes the allowing of others to partake or enjoy in common with ourselves. Impart is more specific. It is giving to others a part of what we had held as our own, or making them our partners; as, to impart our feelings; to impart of our property, etc. Hence there is something more intimate in imparting intelligence than in communicating it. To reveal is to disclose something hidden or concealed; as, to reveal a secret.

Com·mu′ni·cate, v. i. 1. To share or participate; to possess or enjoy in common; to have sympathy.

Ye did communicate with my affliction. Philip. iv. 4.

2. To give alms, sympathy, or aid.

To do good and to communicate forget not. Heb. xiii. 16.

3. To have intercourse or to be the means of intercourse; as, to communicate with another on business; to be connected; as, a communicating artery.

Subjects suffered to communicate and to have intercourse of traffic. Hakluyt.

The whole body is nothing but a system of such canals, which all communicate with one another. Arbuthnot.

4. To partake of the Lord's supper; to commune.

The primitive Christians communicated every day. Jer. Taylor.

Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Noah Porter, editor (Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913). Public domain. Text as transcribed by MICRA, Inc., from Project Gutenberg. Changed for Deep Dive Bible: Greek, which our source spelled in Latin letters, set in Greek letters; entries of one spelling merged into one article; Greek words our source left out (shown as “?”), read from the 1898 printing, from the same plates (the Library of Congress’s copy), where the place could be found with certainty. Of the others, 1,362 (a word or a single letter each) were inferred by AI from the context by the dictionary’s own rules and are marked with a wavy underline (tap or point at one to see the note); the rest, which could not be inferred with confidence, are left as “?”.