capitate

American  

[kap-i-teyt] / ˈkæp ɪˌteɪt /

adjective

1. Botany. forming or shaped like a head or dense cluster.

2. Biology. having an enlarged or swollen, headlike termination.

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capitate British  

/ ˈkæpɪˌteɪt /

adjective

1. botany shaped like a head, as certain flowers or inflorescences

2. zoology having an enlarged headlike end

   a capitate bone

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capitate Scientific  

/ kăp′ĭ-tāt′ /

1. The largest of the carpal bones.

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1. Forming a headlike mass or dense cluster, as the flowers of plants in the composite family.

Other Word Forms

• multicapitate
  adjective

Etymology

Origin of capitate

1655–65; < Latin capitātus headed, equivalent to capit- (stem of caput ) head + -ātus -ate ¹

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

capitate

Ovary 3-celled. with 2–6 ovules in each cell; style slender, deciduous by a joint; stigma obtuse or capitate, obscurely 3-lobed.

From The Manual of the Botany of the Northern United States Including the District East of the Mississippi and North of North Carolina and Tennessee by Gray, Asa

Spikelets and numerous flowers compressed, crowded in a densely spiked or capitate panicle.

From The Manual of the Botany of the Northern United States Including the District East of the Mississippi and North of North Carolina and Tennessee by Gray, Asa

Its flowers are purple, lilac, or rose-colored—never yellow; the anthers are basifixed—i.e. fixed by their bases—not versatile; and the stigma, instead of being capitate, has four linear lobes.

From The Wild Flowers of California: Their Names, Haunts, and Habits by Parsons, Mary Elizabeth

Usually floating; leaves thicker, round-reniform, 3–7-cleft, the lobes crenate; peduncles 1–3´ long, reflexed in fruit; capitate umbel 5–10-flowered; fruit 1–1½´´ broad; ribs rather obscure; seed-section oblong.—E. Penn. to Fla., thence westward.

From The Manual of the Botany of the Northern United States Including the District East of the Mississippi and North of North Carolina and Tennessee by Gray, Asa

Achenes terete; pappus of the central flowers capillary, of the outer ones mostly none.—Annual, low, branching woolly herbs, with entire leaves, and small heads in capitate clusters.

From The Manual of the Botany of the Northern United States Including the District East of the Mississippi and North of North Carolina and Tennessee by Gray, Asa