This is a mouthful of a synonym for “to approach.” It can be broken down into its Latin parts: “ad-” (“toward”) and “propinquō” (“draw near”). Why would someone want to use “appropinquate” instead of “approach”? Quite simply, there’s not much cause to use the overly complicated word, and it has almost entirely fallen out of common usage. But now you know a new word that might come in handy for a word game.