tapetum
noun
tapetum is a noun meaning “A membranous layer of tissue” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). It is spelled T-A-P-E-T-U-M, and it appears about once in every 30 million words in written English (wordfreq, 2021 data). The plural of tapetum is tapetums or tapeta.
What does tapetum mean?
noun
- 1
A membranous layer of tissue.
- 2
The pigmentary layer of the retina.
- 3
The cells on the outside of an archesporium.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Forms of tapetum
- tapetums plural
- tapeta plural
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How common is tapetum?
Tapetum appears about once in every 30 million words in written English, the 167,786th 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).
Where does tapetum come from?
From Latin tapētum. Further from Ancient Greek τάπης (tápēs). Doublet of tapet.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).