oviparous
/oʊˈvɪpəɹəs/adjective
oviparous is an adjective meaning “Depositing eggs that develop and hatch outside the body as a reproductive strategy” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). It is spelled O-V-I-P-A-R-O-U-S and has 4 syllables, and it appears about once in every 18 million words in written English (wordfreq, 2021 data).
What does oviparous mean?
adjective
- 1
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.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How do you pronounce oviparous?
- UK /əʊˈvɪpəɹəs/
- US /oʊˈvɪpəɹəs/
Oviparous has 4 syllables (counted from its American pronunciation in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary).
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: LL-Q1860_(eng)-Vealhurl-oviparous.wav, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
How common is oviparous?
Oviparous appears about once in every 18 million words in written English, the 128,787th 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).
Oviparous in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
In the sense egg laying:
| Language | Words |
|---|---|
| French | ovipare |
| German | ovipar, eierlegend |
| Spanish | ovíparo |
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 oviparous come from?
Adapted borrowing of Late Latin ōviparus + -ous. By surface analysis, ovi- + -parous.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).