Interrogate

//ɪnˈtɛɹ.ə.ɡeɪt// verb

verb ·Moderate ·College level

Definitions

Verb
  1. 1
    to question or quiz, especially in a thorough and/or aggressive manner transitive

    "The police interrogated the suspect at some length before they let him go."

  2. 2
    pose a series of questions to wordnet
  3. 3
    to query; to request information from. transitive

    "to interrogate a database"

  4. 4
    transmit (a signal) for setting off an appropriate response, as in telecommunication wordnet
  5. 5
    to examine critically. literary, transitive

    "Griffin's approach allows her to reveal Billie Holiday's resilient strength of character and to interrogate the racism she endured, which was as tragic as her personal mistakes."

Synonyms

All synonyms
answerapproachascertainaskbe curiousburn with curiosity

Example

More examples

"He knows how to interrogate people."

Etymology

Learned borrowing from Latin interrogātus, the perfect passive participle of Latin interrogō (“to inquire, interrogate”), see -ate (verb-forming suffix).

Related phrases

cross-interrogate

More for "interrogate"

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.