[f. L. conjugāt- ppl. stem of conjugāre to yoke together, f. con- together + jugāre to join, yoke, marry, f. jug-um YOKE. Cf. F. conjuguer.]
1. trans. To yoke together, to couple; to join together, unite. rare.
1570. Levins, Manip., 40/24. To coniugate, coniungare.
a. 1639. Wotton, in Gutch, Coll. Cur., I. 216. Power and occasion to conjugate at pleasure the Norman and the Saxon Houses.
1641. J. Jackson, True Evang. T., III. 173. Lyons, and Oxen, Asps, and young children, (for thus the Text conjugates them) dwell together.
1674. Grew, Anat. Plants, III. I. ii. § 8. [The vessels of the bark] Conjugated or Braced together in the form of Net-Work.
2. Gram. To inflect (a verb) in its various forms of voice, mood, tense, number, and person.
1530. Palsgr., Introd., 33. In the seconde boke, where I conjugate je parle and je conuertis at the length.
c. 1620. Hume, Brit. Tongue, 32 These [verbs] our idiom conjugates onelie in two tymes, the tyme present and tym past.
1783. Gentl. Mag., LIII. I. 432. Can any of you all impart A rule to conjugate the heart; To shew its present, perfect, future, Its active, passive and its neuter.
1824. L. Murray, Eng. Gram., I. 159. These languages, like our own … sometimes conjugate with an auxiliary, and sometimes without it.
1871. Earle, Philol., § 276. Whatever verb is invented or borrowed is naturally conjugated after the prevalent pattern.
3. intr. a. = CONJOIN 4 c. b. Biol. To unite in CONJUGATION (sense 5).
1790. J. Williams, Shrove Tuesday (1794), 12. When first I woo’d and won Your will to conjugate in Ceres’ cot.
1859. Darwin, Orig. Spec., iv. (1878), 81. Organic beings extremely low in the scale, which do not propagate sexually, nor conjugate.
1875. Contemp. Rev., XXVII. 83. Any two cells may conjugate and combine their contents within a single cell.
