orient.

1. To establish one’s position or arrange something in relation to a direction or reference point.

2. To help someone become familiar with a place, task, or situation.

3. To direct an activity, approach, or attention toward a particular aim or concern.

Use it for

Words that belong together

• orient oneself
• orient toward the light
• orient a map

On the page

She used the tower to orient herself after the path disappeared.

The diagram orients the building toward the river rather than the present road.

The opening section orients the reader to the dispute before evaluating the evidence.

The briefing oriented new interviewers to the setting without supplying expected answers.

The framework orients attention toward relationships that a purely individual account leaves unexplained.

Usage notes

Verb only in this entry: orients, oriented, oriented, orienting; future will orient. Variant orientate is not another canonical entry. Orient oneself, orient someone to, orient something toward. Orientate is an established verb variant; neither it nor its inflections is counted separately. Register: formal. Commonness: moderately common (qualitative editorial estimate, informed by dictionaries/corpus).