divaricate
Americanverb (used without object)
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to spread apart; branch; diverge.
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Botany, Zoology. to branch at a wide angle.
adjective
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spread apart; widely divergent.
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Botany, Zoology. branching at a wide angle.
verb
adjective
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of divaricate
1615–25; < Latin dīvāricātus (past participle of dīvāricāre ), equivalent to dī di- 2 + vāric- (base of vāricāre to straddle; see prevaricate) + -ātus -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.
See Examples For:
While they run on together, the closest translation may be considered as the best; but when they divaricate, each must take its natural course.
From Lives of the Poets, Volume 1 by Johnson, Samuel
We divaricate so much, as Dr Johnson said.
From James Boswell Famous Scots Series by Leask, W. Keith (William Keith)
The polypidom is five or six inches high, perhaps more; stem slender, branches long, divaricate at rightangles, not opposite.
V. diverge, divaricate, radiate; ramify; branch off, glance off, file off; fly off, fly off at a tangent; spread, scatter, disperse &c.
From Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases by Roget, Peter Mark
Colour greyish brown; polypidom 4 to five inches high, much branched, branches irregular, divaricate, rising in great numbers almost immediately from the mass of radical fibres.
I now, in this hasty, feeble, and divaricated biographical sketch, approach the great and favourite work of my admired friend, The History of British Birds.
From The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction Volume 14, No. 389, September 12, 1829 by Various
Tail divaricated and black; some of the lateral feathers faintly margined with orange.
From Zoological Illustrations, Volume I or Original Figures and Descriptions of New, Rare, or Interesting Animals by Swainson, William
Cardinal teeth small, fragile, variable in number, and rarely divaricated.
From Zoological Illustrations, Volume I or Original Figures and Descriptions of New, Rare, or Interesting Animals by Swainson, William
The talk itself was far more desultory, and in consequence of questions, objections, and explanations, divaricated much from the comparatively direct line I have endeavoured to give it here.
From Wilfrid Cumbermede by MacDonald, George
The ventral spine is short and blunt, and is armed with short divaricated teeth, some of which are forked.
I would like in a parenthetical section to expand and render rather more concrete this idea of the species as one divaricating flow of blood, by an appeal to its arithmetical aspect.
From First and Last Things by Wells, H. G. (Herbert George)
Very much branched, tan-colored, then ochraceous; trunk slender, villous, rooting; branches flexuous, having many divisions, branches of the same color, divaricating, fragile.
From The Mushroom, Edible and Otherwise Its Habitat and its Time of Growth by Hard, Miron Elisha
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.
