Meaning & use
cooperate
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Meanings
verbintransitive
To work together with others toward the same aim.
Grammar: No object; usually followed by with a person or group: cooperate with the team.
Patterns
- cooperate with someone
- cooperate on something
- cooperate to do something
The two schools cooperate on a joint science project.
If we cooperate, we can finish before dinner.
Several countries agreed to cooperate to reduce pollution.
verbintransitive
To do what someone in authority asks, and so make a situation easier to handle.
Grammar: No object; often used with fully or refuse to: he refused to cooperate.
Patterns
- cooperate with the police
- refuse to cooperate
The witness agreed to cooperate with investigators.
The toddler refused to cooperate at bath time.
If the suspect cooperates, the process will be quicker.
Word forms
| third person singular | cooperates |
|---|---|
| past tense | cooperated |
| past participle | cooperated |
| -ing form | cooperating |
Common combinations
- cooperate fully
- The company promised to cooperate fully with the audit.
- cooperate with the authorities
- Please cooperate with the authorities during the inspection.
- refuse to cooperate
- The patient refused to cooperate with the nurses.
- willing to cooperate
- Both sides seemed willing to cooperate on a compromise.
- cooperate closely
- Teachers and parents cooperate closely to support students.
Synonyms and how they differ
- collaborate
- Collaborate stresses creating something together, such as a book or study, while cooperate can simply mean not getting in the way.
- work together
- Work together is the plain everyday phrase and sounds less formal than cooperate.
- comply
- Comply means to obey a rule or request, so it fits the authority sense but not the partnership sense.
- pitch in
- Pitch in is informal and means to help with a task, usually without any formal arrangement.
Opposites
Word family
- cooperation noun
- the act of working together
- cooperative adjective
- willing to work with others, or done jointly
- cooperative noun
- a business or farm owned and run by its members
- uncooperative adjective
- unwilling to help or follow instructions
- cooperatively adverb
- in a way that shows willingness to work together
Commonly confused: cooperate or collaborate?
cooperate vs collaborate
Collaborate often means making something together, while cooperate is wider; collaborate can also mean helping an enemy, which cooperate never does.
Practice
Which preposition completes the sentence? The two companies agreed to cooperate ___ each other on the project.
Choose one answer.
Cooperate takes with before the partner. By, from and at are not used with this verb for the other party.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “cooperate”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.