oviparous

English

Etymology

From Latin oviparus, ovo- “egg” + pariō (“give birth, produce, bring forth”).

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /əʊˈvɪpəɹəs/

• Audio (Southern England):

  (file)

• (US) IPA^(key): /oʊˈvɪpəɹəs/

Adjective

oviparous (not comparable)

1. Egg-laying; depositing eggs that develop and hatch outside the body as a reproductive strategy.

   The echidna is a monotreme, which is the extremely small subset of oviparous mammals.

   • 1643, Thomas Browne, Religio Medici, Hydriotaphia, and the Letter to a Friend‎^[1]:

     And though it might be thought that all animals who have lungs do cough; yet in cataceous fishes, who have large and strong lungs, the same is not observed; nor yet in oviparous quadrupeds: and in the greatest thereof, the crocodile, although we read much of their tears, we find nothing of that motion.

   • 1983, Richard Ellis, The Book of Sharks, Knopf, →ISBN, page 138:

     Until fairly recently, no female Somniosus had been observed to be carrying embryos, so it was assumed that this was an oviparous species.

Related terms

• ovoviviparous

Translations

egg laying

• Bengali: অণ্ডজ (bn) (oṇḍojo)
• Breton: vic'haner
• Catalan: ovípar
• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 卵生 (zh) (luǎnshēng)

• Dutch: eierleggend
• Finnish: muniva (fi), ovipaarinen (fi)
• French: ovipare (fr)
• German: ovipar (de), eierlegend (de)
• Greek: ωοτόκος (el) (ootókos)

  Ancient: ᾠότοκος (ōiótokos)

• Irish: ubh-bhreitheach
• Italian: oviparo (it)
• Japanese: 卵生の (ja) (ransei no)
• Latin: oviparus
• Malay: oviparus
• Polish: jajorodny (pl)
• Russian: яйцекладу́щий (ru) (jajcekladúščij), яйцено́сный (ru) (jajcenósnyj)
• Spanish: ovíparo (es)
• Swedish: ovipar
• Welsh: dodwyol (cy)

See also

• viviparous

Anagrams

• apivorous