v. rare. [A modern formation, app. f. COMMENTAT-OR.]
1. trans. = COMMENT v. 2.
1794. Mathias, Purs. Lit., I. 222. Shakspeare … Almost eat up by commentating zeal.
1818. Todd, Commentate, to annotate, to write notes upon [citing Mathias].
1864. Spectator, 31 Dec., 1500. Refined prelates of the Medicean type—the men who commentated not Fathers, but only poets.
1883. Athenæum, 9 June, 725/1. Men who … cannot speak a word of the languages they criticize and commentate.
2. intr. = COMMENT v. 3–5.
1859. Sat. Rev., VIII. 98/1. The Commentator … had been taken in by one as competent … to commentate as himself.
1861. Vacation Tour, 123. The deer, indeed, rather like the sheep … and a flock scampering about three or four miles off is instantly seen and commentated on by them.
Hence Commentating vbl. sb. and ppl. a.
1794. [see above].
1841. D’Israeli, Amen. Lit. (1867), 547. The commentating printer.
1889. J. M. Robertson, Ess. Crit. Method, 89. The Byzantine commentating.
