LATIN DICTIONARYLexicon Latīnum
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“communicate” in Latin

The English word communicate itself goes back to Latin commūnis.

Riddle & Arnold A Copious and Critical English–Latin Lexicon, 1864

communicate
impertire (less commonly impertiri) alicui aliquid or aliquem aliqua re (to give anybody his share; Vid: Zumpt: § 418): communicare aliquid cum aliquo (to make anything, whether a material or mental object, common with another: the construction communicare alicui aliquid is not classical, Vid: Held, Caes., B.G., 3, 18; Ruddim., Instit. Gramm., 2, p. 197): participem facere aliquem alicujus rei (to allow anybody to take a part or share in anything; especially of mental matters: Communicare conveys the notion of two persons receiving one whole in common; by participem facere, one of the two receives a portion only. Participare aliquid cum aliquo hardly belongs to sober prose): infundere aliquid in, with accusative (diffuse, spread, e.g., evil to the state, mala in civitatem): exponere alicui aliquid (to communicate anything, verbally): perscribere aliquid ad aliquem or (more seldom) alicui aliquid (to communicate by writing): effundere aliquid or alicui aliquid (to pour out, as it were; hence, to communicate amply or fully by speech or writing, Vid: Cic., De Or., 1, 34, quite at the end.; Cic., Epistulae ad Atticum, 16, 7, 5; Cic., Oratio Pro L. Flacco, 17, 41): to communicate by friction (of things only), affricare aliquid alicui rei: to communicate anything to anybody (i. e., inform him of it), alicui impertire de re: to communicate anything to anybody verbally, in sermone exponere alicui aliquid: to communicate to anybody any plan, consilium communicare cum aliquo; aliquem participem facere consilii. I communicate to anybody something of my plan, impertio alicui aliquid consilii mei: I communicate my thoughts to anybody, cogitationes meas cum aliquo communico (I make no secret of what I am thinking about), expono alicui, quid sentiam: dico, quid sentiam (I tell anybody what I think of anything): effundo alicui omnia, quae sentio (I communicate to anybody all my thoughts):
Reveal: aperire (to disclose): patefacere (to discover): in medium proferre, also proferre only (to make anything generally known, in a good sense): (the words are found in this connexion and order.) proferre et patefacere: enunciare: evulgare: divulgare (to bring to the knowledge of the multitude what ought not to be told at all, or, at least, only to confidential persons): cum hominibus communicare (to reveal to men, from God, Eccl., revelare) [Vid: also, COMMERCE]. INTR., to take the Lord’s Supper, *ad mensam sacram accedere; *sumere cenam Domini: *ex sacra cena sumere cibum.
To have an internal communication: the houses communicate *domus ita sunt inter se conjunctae, ut ex altera in alteram transiri possit: or *domus transitione pervia inter se conjunctae sunt (after Verg., pervium usum habere).

Quick answer

What is the Latin word for communicate?
The usual Latin words for “communicate” are aperiō, patefaciō, ēvulgō; also dīvulgō. The right choice depends on the sense; see the distinctions below.

Entry from J. E. Riddle & T. K. Arnold, A Copious and Critical English–Latin Lexicon (rev. C. Anthon, New York: Harper, 1864), digitised by Fergus J. P. Walsh, CC BY-SA 4.0; Latin markup adapted by latindictionary.co.