angiosperm
Americannoun
noun
"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012-
Any of a large group of plants that produce flowers. They develop seeds from ovules contained in ovaries, and the seeds are enclosed by fruits which develop from carpels. They are also distinguished by the process of double fertilization. The majority of angiosperms belong to two large classes: monocotyledons and eudicotyledons. The angiosperms are the largest phylum of living plants, existing in some 235,000 species. They range from small floating plants only one millimeter (0.04 inch) in length to towering trees that are over 100 meters (328 ft) tall.
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Compare gymnosperm
Other Word Forms
- angiospermous adjective
Etymology
Origin of angiosperm
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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.
While the forests recovered over the next six million years, angiosperms, or flowering plants, came to dominate them.
From BBC
Edward collected the state’s angiosperms and gymnosperms in an herbarium, and Orra drew and painted them.
From New York Times
The baobab “is famous because it is the biggest angiosperm, and it is the most iconic tree of Africa,” Patrut said.
From Washington Post
The team estimates that the tree was 2,450 years old, making it the oldest known accurately dated African baobab and angiosperm.
From Nature
In angiosperms and other seed plants, that gametophyte phase is still there, but is neatly bundled away inside organs on the sporophyte, and the sporophyte phase is the only bit you ever see externally.
From The Guardian
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.