Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A rounded projection, especially a rounded, projecting anatomical part.
  • noun A subdivision of a bodily organ or part bounded by fissures, connective tissue, or other structural boundaries.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun In the septate cephalopoda like Nautilus and the ammonites, any division of the septal suture which makes a convex curve toward the apex: contrasted with saddle, which is a curvature toward the aperture.
  • noun In the trilobites, one of the divisions of the glabella; a glabellar lobe.
  • noun In geology, a projection from a glacier, like a peninsula: especially used of the continental ice-sheet of the glacial epoch. see ice-lobe.
  • noun A rounded and more or less globular projection or part.
  • noun In botany, a rounded projection or division of a leaf, fruit, or other organ of a plant.
  • noun In zoology, a projection or part which is imperfectly separated from another part: as, the lobes of the maxillæ in insects.
  • noun In machinery, the larger or more prominent part of a cam-wheel.
  • noun The lobus semilunaris inferior together with the slender lobe.
  • noun See the adjectives.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun (Bot.) A rounded projection or division of a leaf.
  • noun (Zoöl.) A membranous flap on the sides of the toes of certain birds, as the coot.
  • noun (Anat.) A round projecting part of an organ, as of the liver, lungs, brain, etc. See Illust. of brain.
  • noun (Mach.) The projecting part of a cam wheel or of a non-circular gear wheel.
  • noun the soft, fleshy prominence in which the human ear terminates below, also called the earlobe. See. Illust. of Ear.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun Any projection or division, especially one of a somewhat rounded form.
  • noun anatomy A division of the brain.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun a rounded projection that is part of a larger structure
  • noun (anatomy) a somewhat rounded subdivision of a bodily organ or part
  • noun the enhanced response of an antenna in a given direction as indicated by a loop in its radiation pattern
  • noun (botany) a part into which a leaf is divided

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English, from Old French, from Late Latin lobus, hull, pod, from Greek lobos, lobe, pod.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From French lobe, from New Latin lobus ("a lobe"), from Ancient Greek λοβός (lobos, "the lobe of the ear or of the liver, the pod of a leguminous plant").

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Examples

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  • (n): in figure skating, a semicircle scribed on the ice by by the skater's blade.

    January 16, 2009