capitulum
Americannoun
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capitula
plural
noun
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a racemose inflorescence in the form of a disc of sessile flowers, the youngest at the centre. It occurs in the daisy and related plants
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anatomy zoology a headlike part, esp the enlarged knoblike terminal part of a long bone, antenna, etc
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capitula
plural
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A small knob or head-shaped part, such as a protuberance of a bone or the tip of an insect's antenna.
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An inflorescence consisting of a compact mass of small stalkless flowers, as in the English daisy. The yellow central portion of the capitulum of a daisy consists of disk flowers, while the outer white, petallike structures are actually ray flowers. The capitulum is the characteristic inflorescence of the composite family (Asteraceae) of flowering plants.
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of capitulum
1715–25; < Latin, equivalent to capit- (stem of caput ) head + -ulum, neuter of -ulus -ule
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.
See Examples For:
Jerome, in fact, seems to have been the first to unambiguously use the term capitulum to refer to a numbered, titled segment of a text.
From The New Yorker ● Oct. 29, 2014
The capitulum articulates with the radius bone of the forearm.
From Textbooks ● Jun. 19, 2013
The articulating surfaces of the distal humerus consist of the trochlea medially and the capitulum laterally.
From Textbooks ● Jun. 19, 2013
Capitulum with two tubular ear-like appendages, seated behind the rudimentary and often absent terga; scuta bilobed; carina absent, or quite rudimentary; peduncle long, distinctly separated from the capitulum.
From A Monograph on the Sub-class Cirripedia With Figures of all the Species. by Charles Darwin
Orifice situated near the summit, and in a line, which is oblique to the longitudinal axis of the peduncle; much wrinkled; barely one third of the length of the whole capitulum.
From A Monograph on the Sub-class Cirripedia With Figures of all the Species. by Charles Darwin
The capitula are rather smaller than those figured by Gaudichaud; but in Mr. Oldfield's collection from the Murchison River we observe analogous specimens, with intermediate gradations.
From Explorations in Australia The Journals of John McDouall Stuart by John McDouall Stuart
The sterile bracts of the daisy occasionally produce capitula, and give rise to the hen-and-chickens daisy.
From Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 10, Slice 5 "Fleury, Claude" to "Foraker" by Various
Bacon, whose previous writings had been mostly scattered tracts, capitula quaedam, took fresh courage from this command of the pope.
From Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 1 "Austria, Lower" to "Bacon" by Various
In the capitula of Compositae we sometimes find the florets converted into green leaves.
From Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 10, Slice 5 "Fleury, Claude" to "Foraker" by Various
Before the 'Opus Majus,' Bacon, according to his own account, had written nothing except a few slight treatises, "capitula quaedam."
From Cabinet Portrait Gallery of British Worthies Volume I by Anonymous
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.
