fusiform

American  

[fyoo-zuh-fawrm] / ˈfyu zəˌfɔrm /

adjective

1. spindle-shaped; rounded and tapering from the middle toward each end, as some roots.

---

fusiform British  

/ ˈfjuːzɪˌfɔːm /

adjective

1. elongated and tapering at both ends; spindle-shaped

---

Other Word Forms

• subfusiform adjective

Etymology

Origin of fusiform

1740–50; < Latin fūs ( us ) spindle + -i- + -form

Example Sentences

She had a broad bulge that’s called a fusiform aneurysm, and a coil wouldn’t fix the rupture.

From Los Angeles Times • Mar. 16, 2022

Results showed higher activity in brain regions dedicated to faces, bodies and scenes, compared with the other categories surveyed in the fusiform face area, the extrastriate body area and the parahippocampal place area, respectively.

From Scientific American • Nov. 15, 2021

"Small-headed Child who Power-Lifts with #sharpie_eyes & uncircumcised fusiform fingers struggles to defend #Renoir's painting abilities on social media."

From The Verge • Oct. 12, 2015

Animals with bilateral symmetry that live in water tend to have a fusiform shape: this is a tubular shaped body that is tapered at both ends.

From Textbooks • Jan. 1, 2015

Achenes fusiform or compressed; pappus of 5 or fewer thin nerveless paleæ, alternating with rough bristly awns, or these wanting.—Low southwestern branching annuals, with narrow entire leaves and solitary terminal heads; ray white or purple.

From The Manual of the Botany of the Northern United States Including the District East of the Mississippi and North of North Carolina and Tennessee by Gray, Asa