palmate
nounEtymology From palmic acid + -ate (“salt or ester”).
1
Chemistry, Natural sciences, Physical sciences Any salt or ester of ricinoleic acid (formerly called palmic acid); a ricinoleate.
- Derived terms
- sodium palmate
palmate
adj/ˈpɑmeit/ · /ˈpɑlmeit/
Etymology Learned borrowing from Latin palmātus (“hand-shaped, palm-leaf shaped”), from palma (“palm, palm-tree”). Equivalent to palm + -ate (adjective-forming suffix). Compare French palmé.
- Although palmate leaves are typical of most Western maples, a number of species have leaves without lobes.
2
Biology, Botany, Natural sciences Of leaves Having more than three leaflets arising from a common point, often in the form of a fan.
- The horse chestnut, buckeye and hickory trees have palmate leaves. That is, the broad oval leaflets are all set around the tip of a common leaf stem, spreading in a circle, like the ribs of a palm leaf fan.1909, Eleanor Stockhouse Atkinson, “In the Tree Tops”, in The How and Why Library:
3
Rare Having webbed appendage; palmated.
- The Palmate Newt is a common Western European amphibian.
4
Rare Hand-like; shaped like a hand with extended fingers
- Derived terms
- bipalmate, costapalmate, nonpalmate, palmately, palmate newt, palmation, semipalmate, subpalmate, totipalmate
- Related terms
- pinnate