approximate

1. 1.

   be close or similar

   “Her results approximate my own”

   Synonymscome close

   Broaderresemble

   Narrowerborder on
2. 2.

   judge tentatively or form an estimate of (quantities or time)

   “I estimate this chicken to weigh three pounds”

   Synonymsestimategaugeguessjudge

   Broadercalculate

   Narrowerquantizemisgaugeplacegivelowballassessmakereckontruncateguesstimate

Other forms of approximate

past tense

approximated·

present participle

approximating·

third person

approximates·

Forms marked · are formed by the regular rule rather than recorded in the source data. English keeps a few hundred irregulars and the rest follow the pattern, so the rule is right far more often than not — but it is a rule, and the mark says so.

Questions about approximate

What does approximate mean?

approximate means "not quite exact or correct". That is the primary sense; the word has 5 in total, listed in full on this page.

How many syllables are in approximate?

approximate has 4 syllables: ap-prox-i-mate. The stress falls on "prox". In IPA it is /əˈpɹɑksəmət/.

What is another word for approximate?

Close synonyms include approximative, rough, near, close together, come close. Each sense on this page lists its own synonyms, because a word with several meanings rarely has one substitute that works for all of them.

Is approximate a common word?

approximate is banded "Familiar" — widely understood, used when the subject calls for it. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.

What rhymes with approximate?

1 word rhymes with approximate. Rhymes are matched on the phonemes from the last stressed vowel onward, which is the definition a reader has in their head.