spore

The combining form -spore is used like a suffix meaning “spore.”  It is often used in scientific terms, especially in biology.

The form -spore ultimately comes from the Greek sporá, meaning “sowing” and “seed.” Sporadic, meaning “occasional,” comes from the related Greek adjective sporadikós. Find out what sporadic has to do with seeds at our entry.

What are variants of –spore?

When used at the beginning of a word, as a prefix, -spore becomes spor-, spori-, or sporo-, as in sporocyst. A variant suffix used to create adjectives from nouns is –sporous, as in acrosporous, from acrospore.

Want to know more? Read our Words That Use articles for spor-, spori-, sporo-, and -sporous.

One example of a term from biology that features the combining form -spore is microspore, “the smaller of the two kinds of spores characteristically produced by seed plants and some fern allies.” It can also refer to “a pollen grain.”

The micro- portion of the word may look familiar; it means “small,” from Greek mīkrós. As we have seen, -spore means “spore” or “seed.” Microspore literally translates to “small spore” or “small seed.”

What are some words that use the combining form –spore?

• carpospore
• chlamydospore
• megaspore
• urediospore
• tetraspore
• zygospore

What are some other forms that -spore may be commonly confused with?

• -phore
• -sphere
• -sporous
• -ster

The combining form mega- means “large.” With this in mind, what is a megaspore?