interdigitate, v. Chiefly Anat.
(ɪntəˈdɪdʒɪteɪt)
[f. inter- 1 b + L. digit-us finger + -ate3: cf. digitate v.]
1. intr. To interlock like the fingers of the two hands when clasped; to project or be inserted alternately between each other, as processes of a muscle, etc.; to inosculate by reciprocal serrations.
| 1847–9 Todd Cycl. Anat. IV. 737/2 An equal number of similar processes..with which they interdigitate. 1855 R. Owen Lectures on the Comparative Anat. & Physiol. of the Invertibrate Animals (ed. 2) i. 7 The groups of characters that are essential to the true definition of a plant and an animal interdigitate, so to speak, in that low department of the organic world from which the two great branches rise and diverge. 1870 Rolleston Anim. Life 193 It [the posterior retractor] inter-digitates very freely with the protractor pedis. 1887 Lancet 24 Sept. 604/1 This strapping..is fenestrated, and cut into strips that interdigitate. 1893 J. S. Burdon-Sanderson Pres. Addr. Brit. Assoc., Questions..which here, though they do not overlap, at least interdigitate. |
2. trans. To cause to interlock or inosculate in this way. In Geol. = interstratify v. 1.
| 1864 in Webster. 1882 in Ogilvie. 1969 Bennison & Wright Geol. Hist. Brit. Isles viii. 160 In north Devon marine and non-marine beds occur in the same sequence. They are interdigitated due to alternating expansions and contractions of the area of marine deposition. 1974 Sci. Amer. Feb. 64/1 The last step..involves interdigitating a set of thick filaments in the spaces between the thin filaments. |
Hence interˈdigitating ppl. a.
| 1875 Romanes in Life (1895) 25 Interposing a great number of interdigitating cuts in the course of the spiral. |