Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • adjective Shaped like a sword, as the leaf of an iris.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • In botany and zoology, sword-shaped; straight, sharp on both edges, and tapering to a point; xiphoid; ensate: as, an ensiform leaf or organ.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • adjective Having the form of a sword blade; sword-shaped.
  • adjective (Anat.) See Xiphisternum.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • adjective shaped like a sword blade

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • adjective shaped like a sword blade

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Latin ēnsis, sword + –form.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Latin ensis ("sword") + -form

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Examples

Comments

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  • Sword-shaped.

    October 21, 2007

  • What, like xiphoid?

    October 21, 2007

  • Some of the entries at http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/ensiform actually give xiphoid as a definition; for some reason our language has ended up with a Latin- and a Greek-derived word for the same thing.

    October 22, 2007

  • Total chaos, as usual! Isn't English wonderful?

    October 22, 2007

  • What's this "ensis" nonsense? Everyone knows the Latin for sword is "gladius", and that the more natural Latin-derived word must therefore be gladiate.

    Just sayin' ..

    October 22, 2007

  • Gladius/ensiform will go nicely with cattus/feline.

    October 22, 2007