[singk-foil] 
| 1. | any of several plants belonging to the genus Potentilla, of the rose family, having yellow, red, or white five-petaled flowers, as P. reptans (creeping cinquefoil), of the Old World, or P. argentea (silvery cinquefoil), of North America. |
| 2. | Also called quinquefoil, quintefoil. Architecture. a panellike ornament consisting of five lobes, divided by cusps, radiating from a common center. |
| 3. | Heraldry. a charge in the form of a five-leaved clover. |
| cinque·foil (sĭngk'foil', sāngk'-) n.
[Middle English cinkfoil : cink, five; see cinque + foil, leaf (translation of Old French quintefeuille, from Latin quīnquefolium, translation of Greek pentaphullon); see foil2.] |