​ACUMINATE (from Lat. acumen, point), sharpened or pointed, a word used principally in botany and ornithology, to denote the narrowing or lance-shaping of a leaf or of a bird’s feather into a point, generally at the tip, though sometimes (with regard to a leaf) at the base. The poet William Cowper used the word to denote sharp and keen despair, but other authors, Sir T. Browne, Bacon, Bulwer, &c., use it to explain a material pointed shape.