Talk:decussate

Leaves in botany
"Decussate" is also a technical term in botany, referring to the arrangement of leaves about a stem, twig, or branch. I came here seeking guidance about the botanical usage because I would expect as much of the OED. "X-shaped" is correct as far as it goes, now that I've gone on and looked up the word elsewhere (google, I confess), but it would have been nice if I hadn't had to google after going to Wiktionary. However, I'm not really sure how to expand the current definition (because I'm a wiktionary newbie recently arrived from wikipedia). How does Wiktionary typically deal with specialized and technical senses of words? If any of you can give me any pointers to discussions or policies about this question, that would be great. --Arkuat 07:04, 25 December 2007 (UTC)


 * ✅ Equinox ◑ 04:34, 24 January 2022 (UTC)

Definition in rhetoric
The rhetorical definition is almost certainly very outdated and should be marked as such; but more importantly, so are most of the terms in it. Searching Google for anything to do with rising and falling clauses seems to bring up some legalese about equity and futures agreements in contracts, and a search for "decussated period" presents about a thousand websites who probably copied the definition from here, and upon close inspection, a certain Royal Dictionary-Cyclopaedia for Universal Reference from the mid-nineteenth century which probably served as the unwitting source for the definition's (uncited) appearance here. It would be nice if someone more knowledgable about archaic rhetorical terms could clarify the definition, and — unless it turns out the sense is still in modern use — mark it properly as either "dated," "obsolete," or "arcaic." - Renaissance Jack (talk) 04:15, 24 January 2022 (UTC)