What does plicate mean?
Plicate is a formal word for something folded or marked with pleats. As an adjective, it describes material, decoration, or natural structures that bear raised or recessed folds; as a verb, it means to fold or pleat something. A plicate fan, for instance, opens into radiating, accordion-like ridges, while a craftsperson may plicate cloth into narrow folds. The word is uncommon in everyday speech but remains useful in formal description and specialist vocabulary, including discussions of design and botany. Its distinction from simply creased is that plication normally suggests deliberate, repeated folds rather than an accidental wrinkle. Plicate comes from Latin plicare, “to fold,” the same root behind complicate and implicate. Though obscure, it offers an exact way to distinguish structured folding from general rumpling and can add a classical note to prose.
Having or marked with pleats; folded into ridges.
"The wings displayed an elegant plicate pattern."
Chiefly formal or technical; especially used for materials, objects, and botanical structures bearing deliberate folds.
To fold or pleat something.
"The artisan plicated the cloth into evenly spaced folds."
Less common than the adjective and encountered chiefly in formal or technical writing.
The Latin root plicare means “to fold”; it also survives in complicate, whose original image was a folding together into confusion.
Reviewed by Deb Chak, Editor. AI-assisted content curated by RJS Tech Solutions LLP.
Where does plicate come from?
Plicate entered English from Latin plicatus, the past participle of plicare, meaning “to fold.” Latin plication and related English forms developed from the same root. Its wider relatives include complicate and implicate, whose meanings range from folding together to entangling or drawing into a complicated situation.
Related word forms
How plicate is actually used
Plicate is uncommon in everyday English but occurs in formal, literary, botanical, and descriptive contexts. It usually suggests deliberate, repeated folds rather than accidental creases.
Easily confused with plicate
A pleat is a noun naming a fold or the act of making one, while plicate is chiefly an adjective describing something folded into pleats or, less commonly, a verb meaning to pleat.