aculeate
Americanadjective
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Biology. having or being any sharp-pointed structure.
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having a slender ovipositor or sting, as the hymenopterous insects.
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pointed; stinging.
adjective
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cutting; pointed
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having prickles or spines, as a rose
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having a sting, as bees, wasps, and ants
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of aculeate
From the Latin word acūleātus, dating back to 1595–1605. See aculeus, -ate 1
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
However, nearly all of that pattern can be traced to one particular group: the aculeate Hymenoptera, which includes stinging wasps, bees and ants.
From Science Daily ● Aug. 15, 2026
After accounting for the unusual evolutionary history of the aculeate Hymenoptera, the researchers found that haplodiploid insects outside that group developed eusociality at rates similar to those seen in diploid insects.
From Science Daily ● Aug. 15, 2026
For none, however socially or financially powerful, was safe from the stab of that aculeate pen, the venom of whose ink is to gleam vividly from the pages of literature for centuries yet to come.
From The Letters of Ambrose Bierce With a Memoir by George Sterling by Ambrose Bierce
Hymonoptera, large size of the cerebral ganglia in; classification of; sexual differences in the wings of; aculeate, relative size of the sexes of.
From The Descent of Man by Charles Darwin
Ovicells aculeate, with strong widely set spines, pyriform depressed.
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
