Do you marinade something or marinate something?
According to Merriam-Webster, both are correct. “Marinade” and “marinate” are both acceptable verbs, but only “marinade” is a noun. Even though you can use either verb in your writing, a piece of work will be stronger if you stick to one, and an editor can help spot those variant spellings.
A big part of my editorial work is double-checking words (there’s another example; “double-check” is hyphenated as a verb but open as a noun). Writers don’t want to look up (open as a verb but closed or hyphenated as a noun) every word they write, so let an editor do this tedious work for you.
Back to marinade. It’s springtime, which means I’ve been grilling a lot, and in the past few years I’ve learned how much tastier marinaded (or marinated) meat is. I think I prefer “marinade.”
Timothy