scored with longitudinal furrows; having long, narrow grooves or furrows.
This word is used mostly in biology: plants with sulcate stems or sulcate seedpods, insects with sulcate foreheads, etc. Female Dysticus water beetles have sulcate elytra (the hardened forewings we usually think of as the shell), while males have smooth elytra. Bisulcate means cleft or cloven, as in 'bisulcate hooves'. Geochelone sulcata is the scientific name for the African spurred tortoise.
Etymology: mid 1700s, from Latin sulcare, to furrow.
