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

This has been observed in pelargoniums and in the Chinese primrose, in both of which the effect was to replace the umbellate form of inflorescence by a capitate one.

From Vegetable Teratology An Account of the Principal Deviations from the Usual Construction of Plants by Maxwell T. Masters

Halteres: the poisers or balancers: capitate movable filaments in Diptera, situated one on each side of the thorax and representing rudimentary hind wings.

From Explanation of Terms Used in Entomology by John. B. Smith

This plant is fleshy, capitate, head ovate, bay-brown, stem yellow, then blackish.

From The Mushroom, Edible and Otherwise Its Habitat and its Time of Growth by Miron Elisha Hard

Flowers in small capitate clusters; lower 2 petals strongly incurved Wild Bean, Strophostyles helvola. 10b.

From The Plants of Michigan Simple Keys for the Identification of the Native Seed Plants of the State by Henry Allan Gleason

The spikelets are sessile, 3 to 12 flowered, 2 to 3-seriate, secund, laterally compressed and forming digitate whorled or capitate spikes, not joined at the base; rachilla continuous between the flowering glumes.

From A Handbook of Some South Indian Grasses by K. Rangachari