ovate
Americanadjective
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Botany.
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having a shape like the longitudinal section of an egg.
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having such a shape with the broader end at the base, as a leaf.
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adjective
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shaped like an egg
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(esp of a leaf) shaped like the longitudinal section of an egg, with the broader end at the base Compare obovate
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of ovate
1750–60; < Latin ōvātus, equivalent to ōv ( um ) egg 1 + -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.
Every bit of ground was drenched in sunlight and steaming in the heat, except for the living room that harbored the only wild population of Chittenango ovate amber snails in the world.
From New York Times • Sep. 13, 2022
A Chittenango ovate amber snail inspected a new leaf placed inside its terrarium in a lab.
From New York Times • Sep. 13, 2022
Here, in an area about the size of a living room, is the only known habitat of a small, critically endangered invertebrate with a marbled spiral shell: the Chittenango ovate amber snail.
From New York Times • Sep. 13, 2022
The morphology of the shell and the underlying animal can vary from circular to ovate.
From Textbooks • Jan. 1, 2015
They brought the scent of the Sahara and Christmas, and yanked the slender, ovate leaves down from the frangipani and the needlelike leaves from the whistling pines, covering everything in a film of brown.
From "Purple Hibiscus" by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
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.
