Definition

Adjective: * Having a shape that resembles the point of a spear; specifically, describing a leaf shape that is elongated, triangular, and tapers to a point at the apex, often with two pointed lobes (like barbs) flaring outward at the base.

Usage

This is a highly specific, descriptive term used almost exclusively in botany, horticulture, and biology to classify and describe the precise shape of leaves, petals, or other plant structures.

Examples

• The spearhead-shaped leaves of the arrowhead plant () are its most distinctive feature.
• Botanists identified the species by its spearhead-shaped foliage with deeply cut basal lobes.
• The illustration clearly shows the difference between lanceolate and spearhead-shaped leaf forms.

Advanced Usage

• The term is a compound adjective, often hyphenated when used before a noun (e.g., a spearhead-shaped leaf) and sometimes left open when used predicatively (e.g., The leaf is spearhead shaped).
• It is synonymous with the more formal botanical term "hastate" (from the Latin , meaning "spear").

Variants and Related Words

• Hastate (adj.): The precise technical synonym for spearhead-shaped in botanical Latin.
• Sagittate (adj.): Describing an arrowhead-shaped leaf, where the two basal lobes point downward or backward, unlike the outward-flaring lobes of a spearhead-shaped leaf.
• Lanceolate (adj.): Describing a narrow, lance-shaped leaf that tapers to a point at both ends, without the distinctive flaring basal lobes.

Synonyms

• Hastate
• Triangular (with basal lobes)
• Lance-shaped (though less precise)

Antonyms

• Rounded
• Ovate (egg-shaped)
• Cordate (heart-shaped)
• Linear (long and narrow with parallel sides)

Adjective

1. (of a leaf shape) like a spear point, with flaring pointed lobes at the base