Wiktionary

mediate

See also: médiate

English

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Etymology

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Borrowed from Late Latin mediatus, past participle of mediare (“to divide in the middle”) (in Medieval Latin, also “to be in the middle, be or become between, mediate”), from Latin medius (“middle”).

Pronunciation

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Verb

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mediate (third-person singular simple present mediates, present participle mediating, simple past and past participle mediated)

  1. (transitive) To resolve differences, or to bring about a settlement, between conflicting parties.
    Negotiators managed to mediate a ceasefire.
  2. (intransitive) To intervene between conflicting parties in order to resolve differences or bring about a settlement.
  3. To divide into two equal parts.
    • 1694, William Holder, “Of Measure in General. § More Particularly of Time; and Difficulties Concerning It.”, in A Discourse Concerning Time, […], London: […] J[ohn] Heptinstall, for L[uke] Meredith, […], →OCLC, page 6:
      Then, Meaſuring Land, by vvalking over it, they ſtyled a Double-ſtep (i.e. the Space from the elevation of one Foot, to the ſame Foot ſet dovvn again, mediated by a ſtep of the other Foot) a Pace, equal to 5 Foot; a Thouſand of vvhich Paces made a Mile, vvhich is a Meaſure ſerving for any diſtance on Earth, and even for the Height of the Sphears.
  4. To act as an intermediary causal or communicative agent; to convey.
    • 1817 December 31 (indicated as 1818), [Walter Scott], chapter XII, in Rob Roy. […], volume II, Edinburgh: […] James Ballantyne and Co. for Archibald Constable and Co. […]; London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, →OCLC, pages 251–252:
      He had some advantage in the difference of our weapons; for his sword, as I recollect, was longer than mine, […] His obvious malignity of purpose never for a moment threw him off his guard, and he exhausted every feint and strategem proper to the science of defence; while, at the same time, he mediated the most desperate catastrophe to our rencounter.
    • 2019, Li Huang, James Lambert, “Another Arrow for the Quiver: A New Methodology for Multilingual Researchers”, in Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, →DOI, page 8:
      [A]s much as language in our modern technological world is mediated through the written word, quantitatively spoken language still reigns supreme.
  5. To act as a spiritualistic medium.
  6. To communicate via media; to frame; to provide a cultural narrative about.
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Translations

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Adjective

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mediate

  1. Acting through a mediating agency, indirect.
    • 1861, Sir William Hamilton, The Metaphysics of Sir William Hamilton, page 318:
      The Leibnitzio-Wolfians distinguish three acts in the process of representative cognition: — 1° the act of representing a (mediate) object to the mind; 2° the representation, or, to speak more properly, representamen, itself as an (immediate or vicarious) object exhibited to the mind; 3° the act by which the mind is conscious, immediately of the representative object, and, through it, mediately of the remote object represented.
    • 1989, Oliver Sacks, Seeing Voices: A Journey Into the World of the Deaf:
      Vygotsky saw the development of language and mental powers as neither learned, in the ordinary way, nor emerging epigenetically, but as being social and mediate in nature, as arising from the interaction of adult and child, and as internalizing the cultural instrument of language for the processes of thought.
  2. Intermediate between extremes.
  3. Gained or effected by a medium or condition.

Derived terms

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Translations

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Further reading

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Anagrams

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Italian

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Adjective

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mediate f pl

  1. feminine plural of mediato

Verb

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mediate

  1. inflection of mediare:
    1. second-person plural present indicative/subjunctive
    2. second-person plural imperative
    3. feminine plural past participle

Anagrams

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Latin

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Participle

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mediāte

  1. vocative masculine singular of mediātus

Spanish

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Verb

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mediate

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