to locate

1) To place; to set in a particular spot or position.--Pickering. Webster. This word is comparatively modern in England, and is not found in any of the dictionaries previous to Todd's. It is used among us much more frequently and in a greater variety of senses than in England.

Under this roof the biographer of Johnson passed many jovial, joyous hours; here he has located some of the liveliest scenes, and most brilliant passages, in his entertaining anecdotes of his friend Samuel Johnson.--Cumberland, Memoirs of Himself.

The archbishops and bishops of England can neither locate and limit dioceses in America, nor ordain bishops in any part of the dominions of Great Britain, out of the realm, by any law of the kingdom, or any law of the colonies, or by any canon law acknowledged by either.--John Adams, Letter to Dr. Morse.

A number of courts properly located will keep the business of any country in such condition as but few suits will be instituted.--Debates on the Judiciary, p. 51.

So too a town, a village, and even a piece of ground, is said to be located, i. e. placed, situated, in a particular position.

Baber refers to villages formerly located, as at the present day, on the plains, &c.--Masson's Travels in Afghanistan, Vol. III. p. 193.

When Port Essington was located, all these difficulties had to be suffered over again.--Stokes's Australia, Vol. I. p. 401.

A lot of earth so singularly located, as marks it out by Providence to be the emporium of plenty and the asylum of peace.--[London] Observer.

And hence arises the following American use of the word:

2) To select, survey, and settle the bounds of a particular tract of land, or to designate a portion of land by limits ; as, to locate a tract of a hundred acres in a particular township.--Webster.

Mistakes in locating land were often very serious--the purchaser finding only swamp or gravel, when he had purchased fine farming land.--Mrs. Clavers's Western Clearings.

It is also coming into use in the old country, as will be seen by the following example:

The banks of these rivers [the Macquarrie, &c. in New South Wales] are fast filling with settlements; those of the hunter, the nearest to the seat of government, being, we understand, entirely located.--Edinburgh Review.

3) Applied to persons, it means:

a) To place in a particular position.

The mate, having located himself opposite to me [at the table], began to expostulate upon the mode of sea travelling.--Gilliam, Travels in Mexico.

b) To place in a permanent residence; to settle.

The Asega-bok, the book of the judge, contains the laws of the Rustringian Friesians located around the gulf of the Jade.--Bosworth, Pref. to Anglo-Sax. Dic. p. 61.

The most unhealthy points are in the vicinity of mill-dams, and of marshes, near both of which the settlers take particular pains to locate.--Hoffman's Winter in the West, Vol. I.

c) As a technical term used by the Methodists, to settle permanently as a preacher. The word is needed by them, because they have many itinerant preachers who are not located.

Mr. Parsons, like most located and permanent pastors of a wooden country, received almost nothing for his services.--Carlton, New Purchase.