operculum
Americannoun
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opercula,
plural
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operculums
plural
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Botany, Zoology. a part or organ serving as a lid or cover, as a covering flap on a seed vessel.
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Zoology.
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the gill cover of fishes and amphibians.
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(in many gastropods) a horny plate that closes the opening of the shell when the animal is retracted.
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noun
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zoology
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the hard bony flap covering the gill slits in fishes
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the bony plate in certain gastropods covering the opening of the shell when the body is withdrawn
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botany the covering of the spore-bearing capsule of a moss
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biology any other covering or lid in various organisms
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opercula
plural
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of operculum
1705–15; < New Latin, Latin: lid, cover, equivalent to oper ( īre ) to cover + -culum -cule 2
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
Amphibians also have an auricular operculum, which is an extra bone in the ear that transmits sounds to the inner ear.
From Textbooks ● Jan. 1, 2015
The genus Eucalyptus is named for its unusual floral structure derived from the Greek eu-, well, and kaluptos, covered, which refers to the operculum that covers the floral buds before anthesis.
From Nature ● Jun. 10, 2014
The neural activity evoked by pictures of high-calorie food was stronger in specific parts of the brain — the bilateral insula and frontal operculum — than when low-calorie foods were viewed.
From Nature ● Jun. 25, 2012
From the absence of a groove round the aperture, I conclude the operculum is horny.
From Zoological Illustrations, Volume III or Original Figures and Descriptions of New, Rare, or Interesting Animals by William Swainson
Anther without operculum, the cells adnate to the top of the column and often continuous with the beak of the stigma.
From The Manual of the Botany of the Northern United States Including the District East of the Mississippi and North of North Carolina and Tennessee by Asa Gray
These are the plate-like swimmerets and opercula of Gigantostraca and Limulus among Arachnids and of Isopod Crustaceans.
From Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 2, Slice 6 "Armour Plates" to "Arundel, Earls of" by Various
From the remarks on this genus, made at Plate 103, the fact of their opercula being either shelly or horny, is sufficiently established.
From Zoological Illustrations, Volume II or Original Figures and Descriptions of New, Rare, or Interesting Animals by William Swainson
The Potamides inhabit the mouths of rivers in warm latitudes, and are distinguishable from the marine Cerithia by their orbicular and multispiral opercula.
From The Student's Elements of Geology by Sir Charles Lyell
It was shaped and ornamentally carved and painted to represent a wood-worm and inlaid along the rounded upper edge with opercula.
From The Whale House of the Chilkat by George T. Emmons
C—Ampullae placed in the sand which is contained in a box, the spouts of which reach from the opercula into ampullae placed under them.
From De Re Metallica, Translated from the First Latin Edition of 1556 by Georgius Agricola
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
