flagellate

English

Etymology

Etymology tree

Latin flagrum

Latin -lus

Latin flagellum

Proto-Indo-European *-éh₂

Proto-Indo-European *-yéti

Proto-Indo-European *-eh₂yéti

Proto-Italic *-āō

Latin -ō

Latin flagellō

Proto-Indo-European *-tós

Proto-Italic *-tos

Latin -tus

Latin flagellātuslbor.

English flagellate

Learned borrowing from Latin flagellō (“to whip, flog”) and its participle flagellātus.

Pronunciation

• Rhymes: -ɛlət

Verb

flagellate (third-person singular simple present flagellates, present participle flagellating, simple past and past participle flagellated)

1. (transitive) To whip or scourge.
   • 1976 December 11, David Holland, “A Conversation With Maitresse”, in Gay Community News, volume 4, number 24, page 13:

     Red welts rising from a flagellated back

2. (transitive) Of a spermatozoon, to move its tail back and forth.
   • 1981, William Irwin Thompson, The Time Falling Bodies Take to Light: Mythology, Sexuality and the Origins of Culture, London: Rider/Hutchinson & Co., page 63:

     The gigantic egg sits, and the frantic and tiny sperm flagellates its tail to cross vast distances on its quest for dissolution in the huge egg.

Translations

to whip or scourge

• Bulgarian: бичувам (bg) (bičuvam)
• Catalan: flagel·lar (ca)
• Esperanto: skurĝi
• Finnish: piiskata (fi)
• Italian: flagelare
• Quechua: asut'iy
• Russian: поро́ть (ru) (porótʹ), (dated, now means "chastise") бичева́ть (ru) (bičevátʹ)
• Spanish: flagelar (es)
• Swedish: flagellera, piska (sv), gissla (sv)

Adjective

flagellate (comparative more flagellate, superlative most flagellate)

1. Resembling a whip.
2. (biology) Having flagella.

Derived terms

• biflagellate
• flagellation
• triflagellate

Related terms

• flagellum

Translations

resembling a whip

• Finnish: piiskamainen

biology: having flagella

• Bulgarian: камшичест (kamšičest)
• Catalan: flagel·lar (ca)
• Finnish: siima- (fi)
• Russian: жгу́тиковый (ru) (žgútikovyj)

Noun

flagellate (plural flagellates)

1. (biology) Any organism that has flagella.

Translations

organism with flagella

• Finnish: siimaeliö (fi)
• German: Geißeltierchen n
• Italian: flagellato (it)
• Russian: жгутиконо́сец (ru) m (žgutikonósec)
• Vietnamese: trùng roi

Italian

Etymology 1

Verb

flagellate

1. inflection of flagellare:
   1. second-person plural present indicative
   2. second-person plural imperative

Etymology 2

Participle

flagellate f pl

1. feminine plural of flagellato

Latin

Verb

flagellāte

1. second-person plural present active imperative of flagellō