ovum
Americannoun
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Cell Biology.
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the female reproductive cell or gamete of animals, which is capable of developing, usually only after fertilization, into a new individual.
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the female reproductive cell or gamete of plants.
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Architecture. an oval ornament, as in an egg-and-dart molding.
noun
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of ovum
First recorded in 1700–10; from Latin ōvum egg 1; cognate with Greek ōión
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Vocabulary lists containing ovum
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.
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Just as the human being emerges from the fertilized ovum, the creation of the possible is a natural gift and phenomenon we have been given as human beings.
From Salon ● Jan. 20, 2025
In fish, this occurs when sperm swim through the water to find the ovum.
From Textbooks ● Jun. 9, 2022
The Oklahoma measure defines fertilisation as the "fusion of a human spermatozoon with a human ovum".
From BBC ● May 19, 2022
When a sperm and ovum combine during fertilization, the result is a single cell with a full set of genes, called the zygote.
From Slate ● Sep. 18, 2018
It is no longer necessary to guess about the storage of insecticides in the eggs of birds, which obviously lend themselves to this kind of observation more readily than the mammalian ovum.
From "Silent Spring" by Rachel Carson
A female has a system “developed to produce ova” while a male has a system “developed to fertilize” that ova.
From Washington Times ● Jun. 26, 2023
The bill defines female as having XX chromosomes, and a reproductive and endocrine system that produces or would produce ova, or eggs.
From Seattle Times ● May 22, 2023
For example, in many mammal species, ova producers do most of the infant care.
From Scientific American ● May 1, 2023
But the fact that the woman produced ova did not necessarily mean she was a source of life.
From Salon ● Oct. 23, 2022
Triplets may arise from one, two, or three ova.
From Essays In Pastoral Medicine by ?Malley, Austin
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.
