monoecious
Americanadjective
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Biology. having both male and female organs in the same individual; hermaphroditic.
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Botany. (of a plant, species, etc.) having the stamens and the pistils in separate flowers on the same plant.
adjective
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(of some flowering plants) having the male and female reproductive organs in separate flowers on the same plant
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(of some animals and lower plants) hermaphrodite
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Having separate male flowers and female flowers on the same plant. Maize and oaks are monoecious plants.
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Compare dioecious
Other Word Forms
- monoeciously adverb
- monoecism noun
- monoecy noun
Etymology
Origin of monoecious
First recorded in 1755–65; from New Latin (Linnaeus) Monoeci(a) the name of the group comprising monoecious plants, equivalent to Greek mon- “sole, one” + oîk(os) “house” + Latin -ia noun suffix; mon-, -ia, -ous
Compare meaning
How does monoecious compare to similar and commonly confused words? Explore the most common comparisons:
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.
The term for this is "monoecious," and because pumpkins are monoecious, they can cross pollinate with other pumpkins to create vegetables with a wide range of colors, shapes, textures and other variations.
From Salon
As flowering plants, they had four choices: male, female, non-reproductive, and monoecious, a state in which both male and female flowers were present on the same tree.
From Scientific American
Lots of other trees, like me, are called “monoecious.”
From Literature
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Flowers monoecious or dioecious, unisexual, without a perianth, often in the form of cones, but never terminal on the main stem.
From Project Gutenberg
In warmer countries monoecious and dioecious grasses are more frequent.
From Project Gutenberg
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.