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Allin

manipulate

verbcommon in dialogue

  • United Kingdom//məˈnɪp.jʊ.leɪt//
  • Canada//məˈnɪp.jə.leɪt//

To move, arrange or operate something using the hands

verb

  1. 1

    To move, arrange or operate something using the hands

  2. 2

    To influence, manage, direct, control or tamper with something

    manipulate data

    The software can manipulate images easily.

  3. 3

    To handle and move a body part, either as an examination or for a therapeutic purpose

  4. 4

    To influence or control someone in order to achieve a specific purpose, especially one that is unknown to the one being manipulated and beneficial to the manipulator; to use

    cleverly manipulate

    She knew how to manipulate people to get her way.

  5. 5

    datedTo use the hands, especially in scientific experiments.

Etymology

Back-formation from manipulation.

Forms

past tense
manipulated
past participle
manipulated
present participle
manipulating
third person singular
manipulates
The neighbouring pagesAlphabetical order follows the rules of the language, not byte values: an accent decides only between two otherwise identical words, and Spanish files Ñ as a letter of its own.

Lexical content from Wiktionary, under CC BY-SA 4.0 · Source entry · Data version 2026-08-23

Rank among the words of the OpenSubtitles 2018 corpus — film and television subtitles, so spoken rather than written usage (CC BY-SA 3.0).