Furcate
adj, verb ·Moderate ·College level
Definitions
- 1 To fork or branch out.
"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."
- 2 divide into two or more branches so as to form a fork wordnet
- 1 Forked, branched; divided at one end into parts. not-comparable
Example
More examples"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."
Etymology
From Medieval Latin furcātus (“forked, branched”), from Latin furca (“fork”), see -ate (adjective-forming suffix). Compare French fourchu. The verb was formed by metanalysis or as if from Latin furcō (“to fork”), see -ate (verb-forming suffix).
Related phrases
More for "furcate"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.