altricial
/ælˈtɹɪʃəl/adjective, noun
altricial is an adjective meaning “Helpless at birth (of young animals); or having young which are helpless at birth” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). It is spelled A-L-T-R-I-C-I-A-L, and it appears about once in every 60 million words in written English (wordfreq, 2021 data).
What does altricial mean?
adjective
- 1
Helpless at birth (of young animals); or having young which are helpless at birth.
noun
- 1
Such an animal.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How do you pronounce altricial?
- /ælˈtɹɪʃəl/
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: LL-Q1860_(eng)-Vealhurl-altricial.wav, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
Forms of altricial
- more altricial comparative
- most altricial superlative
- altricials plural
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How common is altricial?
Altricial appears about once in every 60 million words in written English, the 243,301st most frequent word form in the list.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
Altricial in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
In the sense having young which are helpless at birth:
| Language | Words |
|---|---|
| Portuguese | altricial |
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.
Where does altricial come from?
From New Latin Altrices (a former division of birds), plural of altrīx, the feminine of altor (“nourisher”), from alere (“to nourish”).
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).