ovipositor
/oʊvɪˈpɑzɪtɚ/noun
ovipositor is a noun meaning “A tubular protruding organ for laying eggs” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). It is spelled O-V-I-P-O-S-I-T-O-R, and it appears about once in every 13 million words in written English (wordfreq, 2021 data). The plural of ovipositor is ovipositors.
What does ovipositor mean?
noun
- 1
A tubular protruding organ for laying eggs.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How do you pronounce ovipositor?
- UK /əʊvɪˈpɒzɪtə/
- US /oʊvɪˈpɑzɪtɚ/
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Forms of ovipositor
- ovipositors plural
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How common is ovipositor?
Ovipositor appears about once in every 13 million words in written English, the 107,757th 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).
Ovipositor in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
In the sense tubular organ for laying eggs:
| Language | Words |
|---|---|
| French | ovipositeur |
| Portuguese | ovipositor |
| Spanish | ovipositor |
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 ovipositor come from?
From ovi- (“egg”) + Latin positor (“one who places”, agent noun form of pōnere).
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).