bifurcate

See also: bifúrcate

English

WOTD – 8 February 2016

Etymology

Learned borrowing from Medieval Latin bifurcātus. Surface Analysis bi- +‎ furcate.

Pronunciation

• (Verb):
  • (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈbaɪfəˌkeɪt/
  • (General American) IPA^(key): /ˈbaɪfɚˌkeɪt/

  • Audio (Southern England):

    (file)

  • Audio (UK):

    (file)

• (Adjective):
  • (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /baɪˈfɛːkɪt/, /baɪˈfɛːkeɪt/
  • (General American) IPA^(key): /baɪˈfɚkət/, /baɪˈfɚkeɪt/
  • Rhymes: -ɜː(ɹ)kɪt
• Hyphenation: bi‧fur‧cate

Verb

bifurcate (third-person singular simple present bifurcates, present participle bifurcating, simple past and past participle bifurcated)

1. (intransitive) To divide or fork into two channels or branches.
   • 1964 December, “Southern raises capacity of Borough Market Junction”, in Modern Railways, page 417:

     A considerable switch is to take place between Charing Cross and Cannon Street as termini for existing trains, in order to develop parallel working over the flat junction at Borough Market, where the two routes bifurcate (four tracks to Cannon Street and two to Charing Cross), as many as 20 times in the maximum hour, when the junction will handle 104 trains in all.

2. (transitive) To cause to bifurcate.

Synonyms

• branch
• fork

Derived terms

• bifurcated (adjective)
• bifurcation
• bifurcative
• bifurcator
• nonbifurcating
• rebifurcate

Related terms

• confurcate
• furcate
• quadfurcated
• trifurcate

Translations

divide into two

• Bulgarian: разклонявам се (razklonjavam se), раздвоявам се (razdvojavam se)
• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 分叉 (zh) (fēnchā)

• Finnish: haaroittaa, jakaa kahtia
• French: bifurquer (fr)
• Greek: διακλαδώνομαι (el) (diakladónomai)
• Hungarian: kettéágazik (hu)
• Italian: biforcare (it)
• Norwegian: bifurkere
• Portuguese: bifurcar (pt)
• Romanian: bifurca (ro)
• Russian: раздваивать (ru) (razdvaivatʹ)
• Spanish: bifurcar (es)
• Swedish: dela sig, klyva sig

Adjective

bifurcate (not comparable)

1. Divided or forked into two; bifurcated.
2. Having bifurcations.

Synonyms

• biforked

Derived terms

• bifurcately

Translations

Divided or forked into two; bifurcated

• Finnish: haarautunut (fi), kahtia haarautunut, kahtiajakoinen, kahtiajakautunut, (rare) bifurkaatti
• German: zweizackig

Having bifurcations.

• Finnish: kahtia jakautuva, jakautuva (fi)
• German: gegabelt (de)

Latin

Adjective

bifurcāte

1. vocative masculine singular of bifurcātus

Spanish

Verb

bifurcate

1. second-person singular voseo imperative of bifurcar combined with te