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pectinate

/ˈpɛktəneɪt/adjective, verb, noun

pectinate is an adjective meaning “Having narrow ridges or projections aligned close together like the teeth of a comb” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). It is spelled P-E-C-T-I-N-A-T-E, and it appears about once in every 66 million words in written English (wordfreq, 2021 data).

What does pectinate mean?

adjective

  1. 1

    Having narrow ridges or projections aligned close together like the teeth of a comb.

    The moth's antennae were pectinate in shape, set with long teeth along one edge only.

  2. 2

    Striate.

verb

  1. 1

    To fit together in an alternating manner; to interlock or interdigitate.

noun

  1. 1

    An ester or salt formed of pectinic acid.

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

How do you pronounce pectinate?

  • /ˈpɛktəneɪt/

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: En-us-pectinate.ogg, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).

Forms of pectinate

  • pectinates present, singular, he/she/it, plural
  • pectinating participle, present
  • pectinated participle, past

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

How common is pectinate?

Pectinate 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).

Pectinate in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese

In the sense resembling a comb:

LanguageWords
Portuguesepectinado
Spanishpectinado

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 pectinate come from?

Borrowed from Latin pectinātus (“combed”), from pectinō (“to comb”), from pecten (“comb”). First attested in the mid-18th century. By surface analysis, Latin pectin- (“comb, scallop”) + -ate.

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