spatulate
Americanadjective
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shaped like a spatula; rounded more or less like a spoon.
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Botany. having a broad, rounded end and a narrow, attenuate base, as a leaf.
adjective
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shaped like a spatula
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Also: spathulate. botany having a narrow base and a broad rounded apex
a spatulate leaf
Other Word Forms
- subspatulate adjective
Etymology
Origin of spatulate
From the New Latin word spatulātus, dating back to 1750–60. See spatula, -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.
It’s a foofy red smelly flower with spatulate petals.
From Washington Post • Nov. 15, 2018
He sits down at his desk before 8:30, tall and impassive, and with slim spatulate fingers runs through his mail.
From Time Magazine Archive
Discussing his helmeted king and his queen, a spatulate pair sitting in a sort of bleak majesty on a bench, he insists that the shapes of his figures are mostly determined by choice of material.
From Time Magazine Archive
New mastodon, spatulate jaw, lower incisors eighteen inches wide.
From Time Magazine Archive
He was a sad, birdlike man with the spatulate face and scrubbed, tapering features of a well-groomed rat.
From "Catch-22" by Joseph Heller
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.
