a. [ad. L. acūleāt-us furnished with a sting or prickle, f. acūleus, dim. of acu-s needle; see -ATE.]
1. Zool. Furnished with a sting.
1661. Lovell, Anim. & Min., 200. Flounder … They have a soft flesh, yet the Aculeate are hard.
1875. Houghton, Sk. Brit. Insects, 130. The aculeate Hymenoptera are those insects furnished with a sting.
1880. Athenæum, No. 2748, 827. Sir J. Lubbock regards the ancestral ant as having been aculeate.
2. Bot. Prickly, set with prickles.
1870. Hooker, Stud. Flora, 199. Bidens … Fruit compressed, ribbed, ribs often aculeate.
3. fig. Pointed, incisive, stinging. [So in L.]
1605. Bacon, Adv. Learn. (1640), 29. The labour here is altogether, that words may be aculeate, sentences concise.
1693. Beverley, Gospel Truth, 1. Any Aculeate Animadversions on particular Expressions.
1880. R. L. Poole, Huguen. of Disp., 186. Political action, hardened and aculeate by hatred.
