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furcate

/ˈfɝ.keɪt/adjective, verb

furcate is an adjective meaning “Forked, branched; divided at one end into parts” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). It is spelled F-U-R-C-A-T-E and has 2 syllables, and it appears about once in every 66 million words in written English (wordfreq, 2021 data).

What does furcate mean?

adjective

  1. 1

    Forked, branched; divided at one end into parts.

verb

  1. 1

    To fork or branch out.

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

How do you pronounce furcate?

  • UK /ˈfɜː.keɪt/
  • UK /ˈfɜː.kət/
  • US /ˈfɝ.keɪt/

As a verb (“To fork or branch out”): /ˈfɜː.keɪt/, /fɜːˈkeɪt/, /ˈfɝ.keɪt/.

Furcate has 2 syllables (counted from the pronunciation).

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: LL-Q1860_(eng)-Vealhurl-furcate.wav, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).

Forms of furcate

  • furcates present, singular, he/she/it
  • furcating participle, present
  • furcated participle, past

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

How common is furcate?

Furcate appears about once in every 66 million words in written English, the 255,765th most frequent word form in the list.

Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).

Furcate in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese

LanguageWords
Frenchbifurqué (forked, branched), bifurquer, se diviser (to fork or branch out)
Spanishahorquillado (forked, branched), ahorquillar (to fork or branch out)

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.

Where does furcate come from?

From Medieval Latin furcātus (“forked, branched”), from Latin furca (“fork”), see -ate (adjective-forming suffix). Compare French fourchu. The verb was formed by metanalysis or as if from Latin furcō (“to fork”), see -ate (verb-forming suffix).

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).