to decorticate
1
9.9
- verb
- /dɪˈkɔːrtɪkeɪt/
- Specialized
- Farmers often decorticate the bark of trees to promote growth.
Examples
-
In botany classes, students learn how to decorticate samples for analysis.
-
They scrape, clean, and decorticate.
Fiction book (1992) -
The surgeon will decorticate the tumor to examine the underlying tissue.
Synonyms
177
1.0
Remove the outer skin from a fruit or vegetable before eating
45
3.4
To take off the outer layer by pulling it
22
3.4
Remove a cover or layer by pulling it away slowly
11
6.2
To come off in thin layers, like peeling bark
3
7.8
To remove a covering from something, leaving it bare
1
3.4
To remove the outer covering from things like fruit or labels
1
9.9
To remove plants and the top layer of soil from land so it becomes bare
To remove the bark from a tree
Antonyms
How Complete
3
7.8
129
2.7
- Specialized
1
9.9
177
1.0
100
1.1
Surface Forms
Morphology
decorticate = corticate (semi-transparent) = de + cortic + ate
The verb is transparently formed by prefixing de- to a base 'corticate', but the base is specialized/rare, so average learners may not deduce it.
Etymology
Decorticate comes from the parts de- meaning 'remove' and cortex meaning 'bark' or 'outer layer', like the bark of a tree. So to decorticate branches or logs is to strip off their outer layer before use.