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

Ovary.—One-celled; with a disklike summit, tapering into two stout styles with large capitate stigmas.

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

Flowers.—In capitate clusters an inch and a half across; deep blue.

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

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

The real flowers are insignificant, suggesting the tubular disk flowers of the Compositæ; calyx-tube coherent with the ovary, surmounting it by 4 small teeth; petals greenish-yellow, oblong, reflexed; stamens 4; pistil with capitate style.

From Handbook of the Trees of New England by Dame, Lorin Low

Flowers few, sessile and capitate clustered on the mostly long peduncles.

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