expiscate

E1X8P3I1S1C3A1T1E1

verb

To fish out; to find out by skill or laborious investigation; to search out or rummage (for information)

“November 1893, Robert Louis Stevenson, Vailima Letters, Chapter XXXIV I am in a fair way to expiscate my family history”

OriginLatin expiscatus →
Scrabble 20
Ask AI about this wordChatGPTClaudePerplexityGoogle AIGrok

Meanings

verbexpiscate (third-person singular simple present expiscates, present participle expiscating, simple past and past participle expiscated)

present singular third person expiscates · participle present expiscating · participle past expiscated · past expiscated

  1. archaicformaltransitiveTo fish out; to find out by skill or laborious investigation; to search out or rummage (for information)

    November 1893, Robert Louis Stevenson, Vailima Letters, Chapter XXXIV I am in a fair way to expiscate my family history

    2 more examples

    Mathematics may be separated into two divisions, one of which expiscates principles or methods, and the other rules or applications.

    1860, John Pringle Nichol, A Cyclopaedia of Physical Sciences

    as if every man had to expiscate for himself from the beginning a system of religious belief

    1866, William Lindsay Alexander, Our Lord's Commendation of the study of Holy Scripture

Origin

  1. Latinexpiscatus
  2. Englishexpiscate

From Latin expiscatus, past participle of expiscari (“to fish out”), from ex (“out”) + piscari (“to fish”), piscis (“fish”). By surface analysis, ex- + Latin pisc- + -ate.

More words from Latin

Full word history & related roots →
Cite this entry
APA

expiscate. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 3, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/expiscate

MLA

“expiscate.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/expiscate. Accessed November 3, 2026.

Chicago

WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “expiscate,” accessed November 3, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/expiscate.

Source: expiscate on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.