Situate comes from Medieval Latin situatus, past participle of situare ('to place'), from Latin situs ('position, site'). The historical chain includes Latin situare and Latin situs. The quoted older senses, "to place" and "position, site", supply the semantic anchors for situate. The formation is best read as participial and borrowed: the word situate carries its older form-history into a compact English lexical shape. In present English it is used as a verb, "to place or position in a particular location or context". English derivatives include situated and situation; related English forms include site, situation, and situational. The result is a verb whose etymology preserves both the older form and the later English specialization.