cupule

[kyoo-pyool]

noun

Botany.
1. a cup-shaped whorl of hardened, cohering bracts, as in the acorn.
2. a cup-shaped outgrowth of the thallus of certain liverworts.
3. the apothecium of a cup fungus.
Zoology. a small cup-shaped sucker or similar organ or part.

Origin of cupule

1820–30; < New Latin cūpula, Late Latin: small tub; see cupola

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2018

Examples from the Web for cupule

Historical Examples of cupule

In the Chestnut the cupule forms the bur; in the Hazel, a leafy husk.
The Elements of Botany
Asa Gray
Here the involucre, in the form of a cup at the base, is called the Cupule.
The Elements of Botany
Asa Gray
The latter are in clusters of a few only, and each separate flower is enclosed in a cupule of overlapping scales.
Field and Woodland Plants
William S. Furneaux
These cylindrical muscles with their cupule and tendon look like so many syringes.
An Introduction to Entomology: Vol. IV (of 4)
William Kirby
Among the specimens of the last class, one sort, the cupule, is extremely widespread.
Appletons' Popular Science Monthly, February 1899
Various

British Dictionary definitions for cupule

cupule

noun

biology a cup-shaped part or structure, such as the cup around the base of an acorn

Word Origin for cupule

C19: from Late Latin cūpula; see cupola

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