fastigiate
Americanadjective
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rising to a pointed top.
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Zoology. joined together in a tapering adhering group.
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Botany.
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erect and parallel, as branches.
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having such branches.
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adjective
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(of plants) having erect branches, often appearing to form a single column with the stem
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(of parts or organs) united in a tapering group
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of fastigiate
First recorded in 1655–65; from Medieval Latin fastīgātus “high, lofty,” from Latin fastīgi(um) “height, highest point” + -ate 1
Explanation
A tree or shrub that is fastigiate has branches that point up. Sometimes the upward sloping branches of a fastigiate tree could look like they’re part of a single column. The word fastigiate comes from the world of botany. A tree that's fastigiate has branches that point up — they’re erect and almost parallel. This gives fastigiate trees a distinctive look, and some people like to plant them in the yard where they don’t have tons of space but want a tree. A Lombardy poplar and a kind of ginkgo biloba are fastigiate trees. Bushes or even branches can be described as fastigiate too.
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.
The fastigiate trees and shrubs are a counterpart of the weeping forms.
From Species and Varieties, Their Origin by Mutation by Hugo de Vries
They are ordinarily called pyramidal or fastigiate forms, and as far as their history goes, they arise suddenly in large sowings of the normal species.
From Species and Varieties, Their Origin by Mutation by Hugo de Vries
A seedling from the fastigiate or upright Irish yew is described as differing greatly from the parent-form "by the exaggeration of the fastigiate habit of its branches."
From The Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication — Volume 2 by Charles Darwin
Among trees the pendulous or weeping, and the broomlike or fastigiate forms are very marked varieties, which occur in species belonging to quite different orders.
From Species and Varieties, Their Origin by Mutation by Hugo de Vries
Beyond that there were many and large limbs; which, diverging only slightly, and in a fastigiate manner, carried the tree nearly as much higher.
From Bruin The Grand Bear Hunt by Johann Baptist Zwecker
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.
