indagate means to search into, investigate. It carries an Arena rating of 1505, earned across 53 head-to-head judged battles.
Among words judged in Lexicurio's Arena, indagate ranks #955 of 17,151 for The Improbable, #3,793 of 17,128 for Most Ponderous Words, #4,495 of 17,132 for Most Betrayed by Its Sound, #4,897 of 17,136 for Most Malleable Words.
Why “indagate” is a great word
INDAGATE — [Verb] To search into or investigate thoroughly. From the Latin indagatus, past participle of indagare ("to search, track"), first attested in English in 1623. Unlike "investigate," a general term for systematic inquiry, or "explore," which suggests a broader, often preliminary survey, to indagate is to pursue a specific intellectual quarry with a tracker's intensity. It is the scholar tracing a footnote's lineage through dusty folios, the detective scrutinizing a ledger for the single misplaced digit, and the archivist's finger slowly tracing a faded watermark—the solemn work of following a faint trail until it yields its hidden truth.
Etymology
First attested in 1623; borrowed from Latin indāgātus, perfect passive participle of indāgō (“to search”), see -ate (verb-forming suffix).
verb
- to search into, investigate
Definitions & examples from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 3.0).
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