Antennae

Part of speech: noun

Pronunciation: /ænˈtɛni/

Definitions

1. Sensory appendages typically located on the heads of various arthropods that facilitate touch, smell, or balance functions in their environment
2. Prolonged, slender projections on certain organisms or artificial constructs that aid in sensory perception or communication
3. Paired appendages on the heads of insects and similar creatures used for sensing their surroundings ; devices or components designed to transmit or receive electromagnetic signals

Etymology: The insect feeler and the ship's yard share a name because of a sailor's rigging. Latin "antenna" (or "antemna") meant a yard, the long horizontal spar that carries a sail on a ship, and it was used that way by the Romans. The word reached English as a term for that spar by the end of the 17th century, when sailing vocabulary was the main place it appeared. The move to insects came through shape. A slender pole stretched out from a hull and waving in the air looks much like a jointed feeler projecting from a head, and naturalists borrowed the old nautical word for the sensory organs they were describing. The plural "antennae" keeps the Latin ending, while "antennas" is the form used for radio aerials and similar devices, which borrowed the word from the same root for their long, thin shape.

Synonyms: feelers, sensory organs, whiskers, probes, appendages