embryo sac

noun Botany.

the megaspore of a seed-bearing plant, situated within the ovule, giving rise to the endosperm and forming the egg cell or nucleus from which the embryo plant develops after fertilization.

Origin of embryo sac

First recorded in 1870–75

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2019

Examples from the Web for embryo sac

Historical Examples of embryo sac

And he observed the extension of the embryo-sacs up the style and the union of the pollen tube with the tip of the embryo-sac.
Makers of British Botany; a collection of biographies by living botanists
Various
He also recognised and figured the great prolongation backwards of the embryo-sac as an empty, absorbent caecum.
Makers of British Botany; a collection of biographies by living botanists
Various
There he continued his study of the embryo-sac in Orchideae, as Sachs subsequently testified, "zu meiner vollsten Zufriedenheit."
Makers of British Botany; a collection of biographies by living botanists
Various
The nucellus is a cellular tissue enveloping one large cell, the embryo-sac or macrospore.
Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 2, Part 1, Slice 1
Various
One of the cells of the nucleus near its apex then enlarges, so as to form a sac, called the embryo-sac.
An Elementary Text-book of the Microscope
John William Griffith

British Dictionary definitions for embryo sac

embryo sac

noun

the structure within a plant ovule that contains the egg cell: develops from the megaspore and contains the embryo plant and endosperm after fertilization

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

embryo sac in Science

embryo sac

An oval structure within an ovule of an angiosperm that contains the egg. Together with the fertilized egg, it develops into a seed. The embryo sac is the female gametophyte of angiosperms, consisting of eight nuclei: the egg and two adjacent and short-lived synergids that are near the micropyle (the opening where the pollen nuclei will enter), two central nuclei (which will combine with one of the pollen nuclei to form the endosperm), and three antipodal nuclei at the end of the embryo sac opposite the micropyle. Like the synergids, these nuclei degenerate at or shortly after fertilization. See more at gametophyte pollination.