Definition of "divaricate" []

• To diverge at a wide angle; spread apart. (verb-intransitive)
• Biology Branching or spreading widely from a point or axis, as branches or on an insect's wings; diverging. (adjective)
• Relating to a separation of two bones normally adjacent or attached but not located in a joint; distatic. (adjective)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "To get up again, his most successful way was to make a run from behind and _divaricate_ on to the horse's tail, like a boy playing at leap-frog; but the beast was always frightened, and bolted before he was well on."
• "Racemes two, both sessile, or one sessile and the other pedicelled on a peduncle which is more or less sheathed by a proper spathe, divaricate or deflexed."
• "Spikelets less compressed, linear or linear-oblong; lateral nerves less prominent; not fascicled, long pedicellate and divaricate when ripe."