furcate

From Medieval Latin furcātus (“forked, branched”), from Latin furca (“fork”).

• (UK) IPA^(key): /ˈfəː.keɪt/, /ˈfəː.kət/

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• (US) IPA^(key): /ˈfɝ.keɪt/

furcate (not comparable)

1. Forked, branched; divided at one end into parts.

• (forked, branched): cloven, forked

furcate (third-person singular simple present furcates, present participle furcating, simple past and past participle furcated)

1. To fork or branch out.
   • 1700 May 17, John Houghton, Husbandry and trade improv'd, number 408:

     But that which I believe yields a great deal of our turpentine, is the fir-tree or deal, which is a coniferous tree, evergreen, whose cones are of the lesser sort, having long leaves, either that whose leaves encompass and cover the branches, bearing long cones hanging downwards as she male fir-tree or pitch-tree; or that whose leaves grow from each side of the stalk, being more flat than those of yew, green on the upper side, and whitish underneath, furcated at the end, bearing cones shorter and thicker, growing erect, as the female fir-tree.

   • 1778, Emanuel Mendes Da Costa, Historia naturalis testaceorum Britanniaeor, or The British conchology, page 173:

     These ridges are prominent, about the thickness of a coarse thread, very numerous, irregular, and run into one another, but towards the bottom, always furcate or divide.

   • 1836, Hermann Burmeister, A Manual of entomology, page 239:

     In Dyticus it even furcates, and with both prongs of the fork it encloses the intestine, and lower down the nervous cord

   • 1836, Hermann Burmeister, A Manual of entomology, page 641:

     Descending keel of the pronotum, which divides into two furcating lamella

• bifurcate
• furcately
• furcation

• facture

furcāte

1. vocative masculine singular of furcātus