Word origin
[1645–55; ‹ NL
cordātus heart-shaped, equiv. to L
cord- (s. of
cor)
heart +
-ātus -ate1]This word is first recorded in the period 1645–55. Other words that entered Englishat around the same time include: capsule, herringbone, regulator, soup, swab-ate is a suffix occurring in loanwords from Latin, its English distribution parallelingthat of Latin. The form originated as a suffix added to a- stem verbs to form adjectives (separate). The resulting form could also be used independently as a noun (advocate) and came to be used as a stem on which a verb could be formed (separate; advocate; agitate). In English the use as a verbal suffix has been extended to stems of non-Latin origin(calibrate; acierate)