oviposit
verb
oviposit is a verb meaning “To lay eggs” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). It is spelled O-V-I-P-O-S-I-T, and it appears about once in every 32 million words in written English (wordfreq, 2021 data).
What does oviposit mean?
verb
- 1
To lay eggs.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Forms of oviposit
- oviposits present, singular, he/she/it
- ovipositing participle, present
- oviposited participle, past
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How common is oviposit?
Oviposit appears about once in every 32 million words in written English, the 171,907th 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).
Oviposit in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
In the sense to lay eggs:
| Language | Words |
|---|---|
| Portuguese | ovipositar, ovopositar |
| Spanish | ovipositar |
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 oviposit come from?
From ovi- (“egg”) + Latin pōsitus (“placed”), perfect passive participle of pōnere (“to place”).
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).