apocarps
|a-po-carp-s|
🇺🇸
/ˈæpəˌkɑrps/
🇬🇧
/ˈæpəˌkɑːps/
(apocarp)
separate carpels / separate fruit
Etymology
'apocarp' originates from New Latin 'apocarpus', ultimately from Greek 'apókarpos', where 'apo-' meant 'away, separate' and 'karpos' meant 'fruit'.
'apókarpos' (Greek) was adopted into New Latin as 'apocarpus' in botanical Latin and later borrowed into English as 'apocarp' in the 19th century for specialized botanical usage.
Initially it meant 'separate/from separate fruit' (literally 'away/removed fruit'), and it has retained the botanical sense of a fruit or carpel that is separate from others rather than fused into a single compound fruit.
Meanings by Part of Speech
Noun 1
in botany, a fruit or fruitlet that develops from a single, free (separate) carpel of an apocarpous gynoecium; more generally, one of the separate carpels or the fruit derived from it.
In some species the carpels remain free and the plant produces numerous apocarps rather than a single compound fruit.
Synonyms
Antonyms
Last updated: 2025/09/19 01:34