polygynous
Americanadjective
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of, pertaining to, characterized by, or practicing polygyny.
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Botany. having many pistils or styles.
Etymology
Origin of polygynous
First recorded in 1840–50; polygyn(y) + -ous
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.
A similar shift appears in some wolf and fox species, which practice forms of social monogamy and cooperative care, even though their ancestral canids were likely group-living and polygynous.
From Science Daily ● Jan. 22, 2026
Darras notes that yellow crazy ants are polygynous, meaning they have multiple queens — in some cases their reproductive capabilities are essentially limitless.
From Salon ● Jul. 24, 2023
Germans were also often polygynous; men might have multiple wives at once and be able to divorce at will, while women’s options were severely limited.
From Textbooks ● Apr. 19, 2023
In 1964, as a 26-year-old graduate student, Chagnon began studying the Yanomamo, a polygynous tribal people who forage, garden and hunt in the rain forests of Amazonia, near the border of Venezuela and Brazil.
From Scientific American ● Sep. 29, 2019
In the second place, even granting Morgan's postulate, the relation of a mother to her son is not that of a wife to the children of other wives of a polygynous husband.
From Kinship Organisations and Group Marriage in Australia by Northcote Whitridge Thomas
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.
