val|vate

val|vate «VAL vayt», adjective.

1. furnished with, or opening by, a valve or valves.

2. serving as or resembling a valve.

3. Botany. a) meeting without overlapping, as the parts of certain buds do. b) united by the margins only, and opening as if by valves, as the capsules of regularly dehiscent fruits and certain anthers do. c) composed of or characterized by such an arrangement of parts.

╂[< Latin valvātus having folding doors < valvae, plural, folding door; see etym. under valve (Cf. ↑valve)]