Word of the Day for Tuesday, January 17, 2012alate \EY-leyt\, adjective:
1. Having wings; winged.
2. Having membranous expansions like wings.
noun:
1. The winged form of an insect when both winged and wingless forms occur in the species.
I had a nightmare last night; the B.O.'s head was on a huge alate body which had long claws sticking down from its gangly legs; it was scooping up unsuspecting victims that had a big "E" on their backsides, which I think stood for Entrepreneur; then he was dashing them on top of the rocks at the beach and laughing hysterically as he dropped each one down; then he flew to South Carolina and started scooping up all of the Republican candidates and dashing them into the abyss called the EPA; and finally with all that done, he flew back to his nest in the White House and sat on all of the eggs in his nest, and each egg had letters on them like CBS, NBC, ABC, CNN, and Newsweek!
--Spy Maker, JSA's Blog
Vainly a few diehard physicists pointed out that wings are of no propulsive help in airless void, that alate flight is possible only where there are wind currents to lift and carry.-- Robert Silverberg, Earth is the Strangest Planet
There are no words branded into this gate, only the shape of a large bird with its wings stretched out over the width of the road like an alate protector.-- Jenny Siler, Easy Money
Alate is comprised of the Latin roots āla meaning "wing" and the suffix -ate which was used in Latin to make a word an adjective (like separate) but in English came to be used to create a verb out of a noun (like agitate).
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