Kenneth G. Wilson (1923–). The Columbia Guide to Standard American English. 1993.
approximate (adj., v.)
The adjective’s final syllable is unstressed and pronounced -mit or -muht; the verb’s final syllable has a tertiary stress and rhymes with mate. The verb is both transitive (His ideas sometimes approximate common sense) and intransitive, when it can combine with to (His behavior only vaguely approximates to good manners).
