How to spell cooperate

hear itco·op·er·ate/koʊ'ɑpə,reɪt/verbSchwa and roots

What it means: To work together on a common task.

In a sentence: The students must cooperate to finish the puzzle.

The part people get wrong

Watch for double o, and an unstressed vowel that is hard to hear. Often misspelled as cooperatee or co-operate.

Same family: cooperation, cooperative, cooperatively, operator, operation. If you can spell one, the shared part carries to the others.

Where it comes from: “Cooperate” comes from the Latin roots co- meaning “together” and operari meaning “to work.” It literally means “to work together,” and it was first used in English in the 17th century to describe people joining their efforts.

Patterns it uses: The unstressed vowel (schwa)

Try spelling it

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