Word.ws English Dictionary

lyrate

lyrate adjective: shaped like a lyre.

lyrate: shaped like a lyre
Image: Harry Rose from South West Rocks, Australia, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Adjective

lyrate (comparative more lyrate, superlative most lyrate)

  1. Shaped like a lyre.
    • The passage of time could only enhance his tenderness for the creature he clasped, this adored creature, whose motion was now more supple, whose haunches had grown more lyrate, whose hair-ribbon he had undone.1969, Vladimir Nabokov, Ada or Ardor, Penguin, published 2011, page 205
  2. Having a large terminal lobe and smaller rounded lobes toward its base.
    • Basal leaves simple, lyrate or pinnatifid; cauline leaves 1- to 2-pinnatifid, pinnatisect or simple.1976, T. G. Tutin, Flora Europaea, Volume 4: Plantaginaceae to Compositae (and Rubiaceae), page 72

Noun

lyrate (plural lyrates)

  1. A long feather with a shape similar to the arm of a lyre, found in the tail of lyrebirds.

lyrate meaning in Tamil

lyrate in Tamil

யாழ்வடிவான, நுனி சிற்றிலை

Forms of lyrate

Adjective
comparativemore lyrate
superlativemost lyrate
Noun
plurallyrates

Origin of lyrate

From New Latin lyrātus, from lyra (“lyre”). By surface analysis, lyre + -ate.

Words formed from lyrate

Questions about lyrate

What does lyrate mean?
Lyrate means shaped like a lyre.
What is lyrate in Tamil?
Lyrate in Tamil is யாழ்வடிவான, நுனி சிற்றிலை. See Lyrate meaning in Tamil.
What part of speech is lyrate?
Lyrate can be an adjective or a noun.

Words near lyrate in the dictionary

  1. lyra violists
  2. lyra viols
  3. Lyraid
  4. Lyraids
  5. lyras
  6. lyrate
  7. lyrated
  8. lyrately
  9. lyrates
  10. lyratol
  11. lyratyl

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: lyrate (page history and authors); lyrate (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “lyrate.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/lyrate. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.