indented

comparative more indented · superlative most indented

1. Cut in the edge into points or inequalities, like teeth; dented on the surface; jagged; notched; stamped in.

   The old brown photograph with the photographer’s indented seal in the corner showed the long ranks of the cavalry […]

   1958, Graham Greene, chapter 2, in Our Man in Havana, part 4, New York: Pocket Books, published 1974, page 143,

   1 more example

   He saw the horrible form among the big trees, in the network of creepers in the fantastic outlines of leaves, of the great indented leaves that seemed to be so many enormous hands with big broad palms, with stiff fingers outspread to lay hold of him; […]

   1896, Joseph Conrad, chapter III, in An Outcast of the Islands, London: T. Fisher Unwin […], →OCLC, part V, page 352

   Synonyms: erose, serrated, dentate, dented, dentilated, erose, gimped, gnawed

2. Having an irregular, uneven border; sinuous; undulating.

   a heavily indented coastline

   2 more examples

   Seeing Orlando, it [the snake] unlinked itself / And with indented glides did slip away / Into a bush; […]

   c. 1598–1600 (date written), William Shakespeare, “As You Like It”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act IV, scene iii]

   So spake the Enemie of Mankind, enclos'd / In Serpent, Inmate bad, and toward Eve / Address'd his way, not with indented wave, / Prone on the ground, as since, but on his reare, […]

   1667, John Milton, “Book VIII”, in Paradise Lost. […], London: […] [Samuel Simmons], and are to be sold by Peter Parker […]; [a]nd by Robert Boulter […]; [a]nd Matthias Walker, […], →OCLC; republished as Paradise Lost in Ten Books: […], London: Basil Montagu Pickering […], 1873, →OCLC, lines 494-497

3. governmentNotched like the part of a saw consisting of the teeth; serrated.

   an indented border or ordinary

4. Bound out by an indenture; apprenticed; indentured.

   an indented servant

5. biologyNotched along the margin with a different colour, like the feathers of some birds.

1. participlepastsimple past and past participle of indent