filiform and pectinate and clavate and capitate and lamellate and ciliiform and denticulate and serrate and ctenoid

As I was studying the words on these pages, I happened upon ctenoid which, along with cucullate, took me down a long and delightful path. I would like to retrace it a little with you tonight. Actually, I won't get to cucullate here. That will have to await another essay.

I knew that ctenoid had to be a Greek-derived word, because the sounds of the consonants in that language clash as loud as the mythological Smyplegades. We have "chi" and "phi" and "kt" and "ksi" and "thl" and many other single or double letters in Greek that come right into English without any softening. Latin, on the other hand, gives us the smooth and calming "lam" and "lum" and "cres" and many others. Yes, "ctenoid" is from two Greek words, meaning "comb-shaped." The Collegiate goes on to say it means "having the margin toothed" and the OED adds that the word is usually used to describe fish. But then both the Collegiate and OED did it; they pointed me to another word: pectinate, and I was off to the races.

Pectinate is from the Latin and means, appropriately, "formed like a comb," and can be used generally in zoology. "The Tongue..was of an equal breadth to the very tip, which was toothed or pectinated about the edges." Or, from 1861, "A pectinated leaf is one whose narrow segments resemble the teeth of a comb." The Collegiate talks about a pectinate antenna and then, to top it all, the unabridged gives me eight nice pictures of various kinds of antennae in the entry under the word. So, I just couldn't stop.

Antennae

So, we have eight forms of antennae listed. And you thought that by going to satellite dish you could get rid of the antenna, right? Nope, they are here to haunt you, but I think the unabridged is pointing to animal or insect antennae. The eight words it uses are: setaceous, filiform, moniliform, serrate, pectinate, clavate, capitate and lamellate. I thought hard for a moment to determine if there was any good reason I shouldn't know these words, and I decided that there wasn't. So, for better or for worse, here they are.

The word most close to pectinate in meaning is serrate. This also is probably the most familiar term of the remaining seven. Something serrate is "saw-edged" or "denticulate." Oh-oh. Don't get me started. Well, denticulate is simply something that is "tooth-like," so that's that. But serrate seems to envision something sharp but tightly notched, while pectinate suggests something that has longer strands or comb-teeth. Clear enough, I think. Let's go on.

I think the next easiest one to envision is moniliform. Derived from the Latin monile, meaning "necklace," a moniliform antenna looks like beads on a necklace. The OED tries to give it a more precise definition when it says, "characterized by or having a chain-like series of bumps, swellings, or joints, resembling beads on a string." But the first attested use of the term (1802) introduces us to the a fourth term: filiform. Derived from the Latin "filus," meaning "thread," filiform means "thread-like." Charles Darwin used the word "filiformed" when he said, "I distinctly saw a long filiformed organ, bearing excessively fine hairs in lines." You wonder why there isn't a word "ciliaform" or something like that, which would capture the Latin word for "hair," but oops, I just looked it up and found that the word ciliform, also spelled ciliiform is attested in the OED only twice--relating to fish [It says that cilia is Latin for "eyelash"]; an example is "When the teeth are equally fine and numerous, but longer, they are called 'cilii-form.'"

We can now begin to see how there may be conceptual overlap between ciliform, which is not given by the unabridged as an example of an antenna, filiform and pectinate. When, really, do hairs become teeth of combs or, to bring in serrate and denticulate, when do the hairs, which have become comb teeth, become notched and short enough to become serrate? I suppose it is all one continuum. Just as it is hard to limn the distinction between a purposeful and knowing action in law, so these terms might also have a porous boundary between them. No matter. We are making great progress.

Other Antennae

So, of the eight examples given in the unabridged for antennae, we have studied filiform, pectinate, serrate and moniliform. Four to go. We have setaceous, derived from the Latin seta, meaning "bristle." Something setaceous, therefore, is bristly. But one of the quotations under ciliiform has the following, "The finest teeth are like fine flexible bristles, ciliiform or setiform. Now, setiform and setaceous are synonymous, but why should ciliiform sneak in with bristles? This bristles with difficulties. I wish someone would construct a sort of continuum, from the softest to the hardest surfaces, paying attention to texture along the way, so that I could have all these terms clearly in my mind. I am sure there is some friendly retired zoologist out there who will soon set my mind straight on this.

Well, we have three other terms. Let's see if I can limp home safely here. A clavate antenna is one whose distal (far from the "handle") end is thicker, like a club. Clear enough. A capitate antenna is thin at the lower end and the very thick at the head. I think a captitate antenna is thicker on the distal end than is a clavate one, though there probably is an argument or two there. Finally, a lamellate antenna has lamellae or thin plate-like protruberances at the distal end.

Conclusion

Almost all the attestations recorded in the OED talk about the natural world, but one does not, and that may be our invitation to try to use these words in generic humanisitic speech. In 1887 Ruskin could say, "This [inlet] was crossed...by the delicatest of filiform suspension bridges." What a vivid picture! We can almost see the threadlike thinness of the bridge before our eyes. See how quickly such a term may become useful? As Jesus said, "Go and do likewise..." Let's look for opportunities to use these words in our day-to-day speech. We will all be the richer for it.

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