operculum
Americannoun
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opercula,
plural
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operculums
plural
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Botany, Zoology. a part or organ serving as a lid or cover, as a covering flap on a seed vessel.
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Zoology.
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the gill cover of fishes and amphibians.
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(in many gastropods) a horny plate that closes the opening of the shell when the animal is retracted.
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noun
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zoology
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the hard bony flap covering the gill slits in fishes
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the bony plate in certain gastropods covering the opening of the shell when the body is withdrawn
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botany the covering of the spore-bearing capsule of a moss
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biology any other covering or lid in various organisms
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opercula
plural
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of operculum
1705–15; < New Latin, Latin: lid, cover, equivalent to oper ( īre ) to cover + -culum -cule 2
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.
See Examples For:
Amphibians also have an auricular operculum, which is an extra bone in the ear that transmits sounds to the inner ear.
From Textbooks ● Jan. 1, 2015
The genus Eucalyptus is named for its unusual floral structure derived from the Greek eu-, well, and kaluptos, covered, which refers to the operculum that covers the floral buds before anthesis.
From Nature ● Jun. 10, 2014
The neural activity evoked by pictures of high-calorie food was stronger in specific parts of the brain — the bilateral insula and frontal operculum — than when low-calorie foods were viewed.
From Nature ● Jun. 25, 2012
Shell globose, wrinkled, olive; spire prominent, acute, the whorls ventricose; margin of the aperture thick, fulvous, grooved; umbilicus small, linear, near the middle of the inner lip; operculum shelly.
From Zoological Illustrations, Volume III or Original Figures and Descriptions of New, Rare, or Interesting Animals by William Swainson
This is the most common of the two shells of this genus, which have their mouths closed by a shelly operculum.
From Zoological Illustrations, Volume II or Original Figures and Descriptions of New, Rare, or Interesting Animals by William Swainson
These calcareous opercula effervesce with lemon juice, and put themselves in motion in proportion as the carbonic acid is disengaged.
From Personal Narrative of Travels to the Equinoctial Regions of America, During the Year 1799-1804 — Volume 1 by Thomasina Ross
They presented a slightly rounded surface, carved in low relief, painted in dull colors, inlaid with opercula and representing, as the name indicated, the dog salmon.
From The Whale House of the Chilkat by George T. Emmons
The tails were only half the original length, all had well-developed hind-legs, some with toes, but the fore-legs were beneath the opercula, not projecting from the surface.
From Hormones and Heredity by J. T. Cunningham
It was easy to see that the stones are thin and porous opercula, which have formed part of small univalve shells.
From Personal Narrative of Travels to the Equinoctial Regions of America, During the Year 1799-1804 — Volume 1 by Thomasina Ross
Changed "the spout from the opercula extends" to "the spouts from the opercula extend" in the caption to the illustration on page 446.
From De Re Metallica, Translated from the First Latin Edition of 1556 by Georgius Agricola
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.
