Marinade or Marinate?

by Craig Shrives

Marinade or Marinate?

What is the difference between "marinade" and "marinate"?
  • "A marinade" is a sauce used to soak food before cooking.
    • Soak the chicken in the marinade overnight.
      • (The word "marinade" is a noun that means "soaking sauce.")
  • "To marinate" is the corresponding verb. It means "to soak food in a marinade."
    • Marinate the chicken overnight.
Note: This distinction is blurring. The verb "to marinade" now features in many dictionaries. (More below)

marinade or marinate?
Got it? Take a quick test.

More about "Marinade" and "Marinate"

The words "marinade" and "marinate" are confused so often that the distinction between them is blurring.

Marinade

The word "marinade" means "a sauce in which food is soaked before cooking." For example:
  • A good marinade makes foods tastier, juicier, healthier, and more tender.
  • With a marinade, the combination of oil, acid, and flavor protects foods from the heat of the grill.
"Marinade" started out life as a noun, but it is used so often as a verb, many dictionaries now list it as one. For example:
  • Marinade the meat for at least 24 hours before cooking.
    • (We can't bring ourselves to give this a tick, but it is acceptable to use "marinade" as a verb nowadays.)
marinade as a verb
This graph from Google's Ngram viewer shows the recent rise of "marinade" as a verb.

Marinate

The word "marinate" is a verb. It means "to soak in a marinade." For example:
  • We need to marinate the meat before tomorrow.
  • Marinating is a great way to intensify the flavour of food with just a few basic
    ingredients.
Don't forget the verb "to marinate" has other forms:
meat marinating in a marinade
Meat marinating in a marinade
Interactive Exercise
Here are three randomly selected questions from a larger exercise, which can be edited, printed to create an exercise worksheet, or sent via email to friends or students.

Help Us To Improve Grammar Monster

  • Do you disagree with something on this page?
  • Did you spot a typo?
Please tell us using this form.

See Also

adverse or averse? affect or effect? appraise or apprise? avenge or revenge? bare or bear? complement or compliment? dependant or dependent? discreet or discrete? disinterested or uninterested? e.g. or i.e.? envy or jealousy? imply or infer? its or it's? material or materiel? poisonous or venomous? practice or practise? principal or principle? tenant or tenet? who's or whose? What are verbs? What are nouns? Glossary of easily confused words