lexicow

simulate

/ˈsɪmjəleɪt//ˈsɪmjʊleɪt/·verb
I watch a screen run a whole flight that goes nowhere — a wireframe horizon tips up to climb, rolls right over into a hard turn, then noses down to come back, while little tapes of numbers slide up and down the sides and a fixed little aircraft mark holds dead centre. Every reading a real flight would give, and the thing is bolted to the floor the whole time. I keep half-expecting it to lift off the ground, and it never needs to.
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Definition

To simulate is to build a working imitation — a model that behaves like the real thing so we can watch, test, or rehearse without the real thing's cost or danger. Pilots simulate emergencies in a grounded cockpit; computers simulate climates, crashes, and crowds. From the Latin simulare, 'to make like', it can also mean to fake a feeling ('she simulated surprise'), but in academic use it almost always means to run a faithful model of how something would actually behave.

Examples

  • Engineers built a model to simulate how the bridge would sway in high winds, letting them anticipate failures before a single beam was raised.
  • The software can simulate an epidemic to test each hypothesis about how it might spread.
  • Trainees simulate engine failures so often that the real thing comes to feel almost routine.

Collocations

simulate conditions·simulate an emergency·a computer simulates·simulate real-world behaviour·a simulated environment

Synonyms

imitate·replicate·model·mimic·reproduce

Antonyms

actualize·realize

Word family

simulation (noun)·simulator (noun)·simulated (adjective)

In TOEFL & IELTS

Central to TOEFL science lectures, where simulations of natural processes (climate, fluid flow, population growth) are common, and to IELTS technology topics. Flag the spelling-and-sound trap: simulate (model) versus stimulate (excite or encourage) — a frequent error. The noun simulation is just as exam-useful as the verb.