bladed

1. 1
   adjective

   Equipped with a blade, or with a stated number or type of blades.

   Engineers tested the twin-bladed rotor under high wind speeds.

   The museum displayed a finely bladed ceremonial dagger from the period.

   Note

   The adjective does most of its work at the tail of a compound, with a number or a shape in front: a four-bladed propeller, a wide-bladed one. Before a noun, these compounds take a hyphen. Standing alone, as in a bladed weapon, it separates things with a cutting edge from things without one. It is not compared, since nothing is more bladed than something else.

2. 2
   verb

   Simple past and past participle of blade.

   They bladed along the boardwalk until the sun went down.

   She bladed to class every morning last semester.

   Note

   One regular form covers every verb sense of blade. Skaters bladed along the boardwalk, a tool was bladed when fitted with an edge, and a victim was bladed when stabbed. In the fitting sense the participle sits very close to the "having a blade" adjective. The slang use for cutting oneself makes the word sensitive, so context should make clear which meaning is intended.

3. 3
   adjective

   Of a plant, having long, narrow, tapering, flat leaves.

   The marsh was thick with bladed sedges along the water's edge.

   Bladed irises lined the garden path in neat rows.

   Note

   Grass is its natural companion, and the pairing is an old one in descriptive prose. Alexander Dow's 1769 Tales translated from the Persian of Inatulla sets pearly drops "tremulous on the bladed grass." In writing like that it works as a painter's adjective that sharpens the picture of each leaf. It is not a gardener's classification. Like the tool sense, it is never compared.

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