Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- adjective Having a form or curvature suggestive of a lyre.
- adjective Botany Having a pinnately divided leaf with an enlarged terminal lobe and smaller lateral lobes.
from The Century Dictionary.
- Resembling a lyre; having the form or curves of a lyre; lyre-shaped. In ornithology, applied to the tail of the lyre-bird, Menura superba, and of the blackcock, Tetrao or Lyrurus tetrix; in entomology, to insects or parts which approach the form of a lyre or lyrate leaf.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- adjective (Bot.) Lyre-shaped, or spatulate and oblong, with small lobes toward the base.
- adjective (Zoöl.) Shaped like a lyre, as the tail of the blackcock, or that of the lyre bird.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- adjective Shaped like a
lyre . - adjective botany, of leaves Having a large
terminal lobe and smaller rounded lobes toward itsbase .
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- adjective (of a leaf shape) having curvature suggestive of a lyre
Etymologies
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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The leaves of this species are six inches long, pale yellowish-green, lyrate, with obtuse and entire divisions: when fully developed, they somewhat resemble those of the oak, as implied by the name.
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The radical leaves are hairy and rough, and are usually lobed, or lyrate; but, in some of the sorts, nearly spatulate, with the borders almost entire.
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Stems from twelve to fifteen inches high; leaves lyrate, the terminal lobe round; flowers small, in erect, loose, terminal spikes, or groups; the seeds are small, wrinkled, of a grayish color, and retain their vitality three years.
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Vilmorin mentions two varieties; one having entire leaves, the other with lyrate or lobed leaves; giving preference, however, to the one with entire leaves.
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The radical leaves are lyrate and roughish when young; those of the stem clasping, or heart-shaped, at base, and of an oblong form, -- all somewhat fleshy, of a dark-green color, with a glaucous bloom.
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Leaves sixteen to eighteen inches in length, very dark green, deeply lobed, or lyrate, and hairy, or hispid, on the nerves and borders.
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The species of Yucatan and southern Mexico have small lyrate antlers with few, short tines, rather different from the broader type of the more northern species with well developed secondary tines.
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In architecture, the cob is nearly three feet high at the shoulder, has beautiful, sweeping horns of a lyrate shape, has a white patch around each eye, a white belly, and a coat of yellow with black on the forelegs.
In Africa Hunting Adventures in the Big Game Country John T. McCutcheon 1909
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Hornless females would place it among the latter; but lyrate horns, ovine nose, and want of sinus, would give it rather to Gazella, and its singular inguinal purses further ally it to _Ant. dorcas_ of this group.
Natural History of the Mammalia of India and Ceylon Robert Armitage Sterndale 1870
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Horns non-lyrate: _Gazella Cuvieri_; _G. leptoceros_; _G.
Natural History of the Mammalia of India and Ceylon Robert Armitage Sterndale 1870
reesetee commented on the word lyrate
In botany, having a leaf shaped like a lyre.
June 12, 2007
yarb commented on the word lyrate
...this adored creature, whose motion was now more supple, whose haunches had grown more lyrate...
- Nabokov, Ada, or Ardor.
May 17, 2008