Topic: Orient & orientate

A listener located a bit east of us asked for the story on orientate. Why, she asked, does that word exist when orient does just fine on its own?

For an answer, we turned to religion and to language itself for direction. Both orient and orientate claim an ancestor in the Latin verb meaning "to rise" (as in the sun rising in the east). When the verb orient first appeared in English (back in the mid-1700s), it enjoyed the specific sense "to build a church or temple with the longitudinal axis pointing eastward and the chief altar at the eastern end." Then, in the mid-19th century, when orientate appeared with the same meaning (and born of the same ancestry), the meaning of the transitive orient began pointing in additional directions.

In addition to its already established sense "to cause to face or point to the east," orient came to mean "to set or arrange in any determinate position"; "to ascertain the bearings of"; "to direct (something) toward the interests of a particular group"; and "to set right by adjusting to facts or principles."

And what of orientate? In addition to being used synonymously with orient, orientate has an established intransitive sense meaning "to face or turn to the east."

So is the transitive orient preferable to the transitive orientate? Not really, although some easily irritat(ate)ed usage commentators do object to the extra syllable.

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