viviparous
/vɪˈvɪpəɹəs/adjective
viviparous is an adjective meaning “Being born alive, as are most mammals, some reptiles, and a few fish (as opposed to being laid as an egg and subsequently hatching, as do most birds…” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). It is spelled V-I-V-I-P-A-R-O-U-S and has 4 syllables, and it appears about once in every 12 million words in written English (wordfreq, 2021 data).
What does viviparous mean?
adjective
- 1
Being born alive, as are most mammals, some reptiles, and a few fish (as opposed to being laid as an egg and subsequently hatching, as do most birds and many other species).
- 2
Arising from an embryo that develops from the outset (rather than from a true seed that then germinates).
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How do you pronounce viviparous?
- /vɪˈvɪpəɹəs/
Viviparous 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-viviparous.wav, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
How common is viviparous?
Viviparous appears about once in every 12 million words in written English, the 102,771st 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).
Viviparous in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
In the sense of an animal:
| Language | Words |
|---|---|
| French | vivipare |
| German | lebendgebärend, lebend gebärend, vivipar |
| Portuguese | vivíparo |
| Spanish | vivíparo |
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 viviparous come from?
From Latin vīviparus, from vīvus (“alive, life, living”) + pariō (“give birth, produce, bring forth”).
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).