Sagittate

Part of speech: adjective

Definitions

1. Having the shape of an arrowhead, with a pointed tip and two barbs or lobes at the base
2. Resembling an arrow in form, with a sharp apex and two backward-pointing projections at the bottom
3. Formed in the manner of an arrowhead, featuring a central point and two lateral lobes extending backward

Etymology: Sagittate describes a leaf or other flat structure shaped like an arrowhead, with two backward-pointing lobes at the base. The word is built directly on the Latin "sagitta," meaning "arrow," with the suffix "-ate," which in botanical and zoological terms marks something having a particular form or quality. Its appearance in English is therefore a plain piece of Latin word-building rather than a loan from a daily-speech term. The shape it names is common in plants, most familiar in arrowhead-leaved plants such as the Sagittaria genus, whose common name in English is arrowhead, and in the leaves of many bindweeds and violets. Because the adjective was made from the Latin root rather than picked up from ordinary speech, it belongs to the same family of scientific description as words like "hastate," which describes a spear-shaped leaf with outward-pointing lobes.

Synonyms: arrow-shaped