Orient - orientate

The verb 'to orientate' has the same meaning as 'to orient', and an otiose syllable.

AWE recommends writers to save two letters, and use orient as the verb. 

(In America, orientate is little used, and often seen as a mistake.) Orientate appears to be an unnecessary back-formation from the slightly older noun orientation, itself formed from 'to orient'.

Etymological note: orient was originally a noun meaning 'the East', and often 'a pearl [from the Indian Ocean, in the East]'. This noun was a substantive use of the adjective derived from the present participle oriens (orientis in the possessive form) of the Latin verb orīrī 'to rise', the East being the direction in which the sun and other astronomical bodies appear to rise - as in Shakespeare's Sonnet 7, when he talks of the sun:

Lo! in the orient when the gracious light

Lifts up his burning head...

The original use of the verb was always 'to position [something] with regard to the East', and it was used about siting churches (Christian churches by convention having the altar at the east, so that worshippers face in the (notional) direction of Jerusalem - as the Mihrab in a mosque indicates the direction of the Kaaba in Mecca) and laying out graves so that the feet of the dead person point to the East. From this, it came to mean 'to align [something] with a particular compass point, or direction': successful map-reading requires the user of the map to orient it so that it corresponds with the physical landscape in view; this is usually done with regard to the North. Around the middle of the nineteenth century, 'to orient' began to be used in more figurative ways: "To bring into a defined relationship with known facts, circumstances, etc.; to give orientation or bearings to" (OED, 2004). This is often used reflexively, so that one can orientate oneself to new circumstances such as a new job or school; or triangulate oneself within a given group, by, for example, identifying more with a particular sub-group within a political party, or by siding with a particular argument in a class discussion.

Other connected words include:

• orientalism, which originally meant 'to do with the countries and cultures east of the Mediterranean' (an orientalist was a student of, or expert in, oriental languages - those of the east); since the publication of Orientalism by Edward W. Said (1935–2003) in 1978, it has often been used to mean 'the patronizing and belittling attitudes of many in the west towards oriental cultures' (particularly of the Middle East; Said was a Palestinian).
• orienteering - a sport in which runners, or other athletes such as skiers and mountain bikers, make their way across country between fixed points which they have to find using a map and compass.