amplexus
Americannoun
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of amplexus
1925–30; < New Latin, Latin: embrace, equivalent to amplect ( ī ) to embrace ( am-, variant of ambi- ambi- + plectī, deponent of plectere to plait, twine; cf. complex, plexus) + -tus suffix of v. action
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.
All the logic and desire that guides a female frog to a specific pond vanishes once she arrives, and a melee ensues as males race to cling to her in a tight embrace called amplexus.
From New York Times • Apr. 28, 2022
Facebook Twitter Pinterest The Bombay Night frogs in Dorsal straddle: a new amplexus mode in frogs.
From The Guardian • Jun. 14, 2016
Male hyalinobatrachines battle on top of leaves and wrestle, with their fighting poses often resembling amplexus.
From Scientific American • Jan. 25, 2013
In amplexus the members of a pair sometimes become glued together by their viscous dermal secretions.
From Field Study of Kansas Ant-Eating Frog by Fitch, Henry S.
Meeting them at the door of the room, the Librarian hastily extemporized a short speech in honour of the occasion, 'in qua,' as the University Register records, 'tribus ferme versibus amplexus est omnia.'
From Annals of the Bodleian Library, Oxford, A.D. 1598-A.D. 1867 With a Preliminary Notice of the earlier Library founded in the Fourteenth Century by Macray, William Dunn
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.
