articulate

Etymology 1

Borrowed from Latin articulātus (“distinct, articulated, jointed”).

adj

1. Clear; effective.
2. Speaking in a clear and effective manner.
   She’s a bright, articulate young woman.
3. Consisting of segments united by joints.
   The robot arm was articulate in two directions.
   jointed articulate animals
4. Distinctly marked off.
   an articulate period in history
5. (obsolete) Expressed in articles or in separate items or particulars.
6. (obsolete, of sound) Related to human speech, as distinct from the vocalisation of animals.
   Brutes cannot form articulate Sounds, cannot articulate the Sounds of the Voice, excepting some few Birds, as the Parrot, Pye, &c. 1728, James Knapton, John Knapton, Cyclopaedia, or an Universal Dictionary of Arts and Sciences, page 146

noun

1. (zoology) An animal of the subkingdom Articulata.
   They considered articulates to be pre-adapted for an eleutherozoic existence because they possess muscular arms which are potentially of value in crawling and swimming, as in comatulids. 1977, Bulletin of the British Museum (Natural History)

Etymology 2

From the adjective.

verb

1. (transitive) To make clear or effective.
2. (transitive, intransitive) To speak clearly; to enunciate.
   I wish he’d articulate his words more clearly.
3. (transitive) To explain; to put into words; to make something specific.
   I like this painting, but I can’t articulate why.
4. (transitive) To bend or hinge something at intervals, or to allow or build something so that it can bend.
   an articulated bus
5. (music, transitive) to attack a note, as by tonguing, slurring, bowing, etc.
   Articulate that passage heavily.
6. (anatomy, intransitive) to form a joint or connect by joints
   The lower jaw articulates with the skull at the temporomandibular joint.
7. (obsolete) To treat or make terms.
   Send us to Rome / The best, with whom we may articulate / For their own good and ours. c. 1605–1608, William Shakespeare, Coriolanus, act 1, scene 9, lines 75–77