'carpellary' originates from New Latin, specifically the word 'carpellarius', where 'carpel-' ultimately comes from Greek 'karpos' meaning 'fruit' and was used in Late/New Latin to denote the 'carpel' (the pistil or ovule-bearing organ).

'carpellary' changed from the New Latin adjective 'carpellarius' and similar Latinized botanical usages and was borrowed into English botanical vocabulary in the 18th–19th centuries, becoming the modern English 'carpellary'.

Initially, it meant 'pertaining to a small fruit or to a carpel' but over time it narrowed to the current sense of 'relating specifically to the carpel (the female reproductive part of a flower)'.