Word.ws English Dictionary

allosperm

allosperm noun: sperm that has been received from another organism.

Noun

allosperm (countable and uncountable, plural allosperms)

  1. Sperm that has been received from another organism.
    • They seem to have mechanisms that favour fertilization by allosperm (donated by a partner) over autosperm (produced endogenously).2000, Robert T. Dillon, The Ecology of Freshwater Molluscs, →ISBN, page 80
    • The latter have a well-defined allosperm storage organ, called spermatheca, attached to their fertilization pouch (Baur, this book).2010, Janet Leonard, Alex Cordoba-Aguilar, The Evolution of Primary Sexual Characters in Animals, →ISBN, page 176

Examples of allosperm in a sentence

  • This is consistent with theory that predicts a preference for the female mating role after periods of sexual isolation because of allosperm depletion.2010, Nils Anthes, Peter M. Kappeler, Ralph Bergmüller, Animal Behaviour: Evolution and Mechanisms, →ISBN, page 340:
  • During copulation, the penis deposits the autosperm (which now become allosperm) into the vaginal channel of the distal hermaphroditic duct of another animal.2011, Gregory A. Lewbart, Invertebrate Medicine, →ISBN, page 101:

Forms of allosperm

pluralallosperms

Origin of allosperm

From allo- + sperm.

Questions about allosperm

What does allosperm mean?
Allosperm means sperm that has been received from another organism.
How do you use allosperm in a sentence?
This is consistent with theory that predicts a preference for the female mating role after periods of sexual isolation because of allosperm depletion.
What part of speech is allosperm?
Allosperm is a noun.
What is the plural of allosperm?
The plural of allosperm is allosperms.

Words near allosperm in the dictionary

  1. allospecific
  2. allospecifically
  3. allospecificities
  4. allospecificity
  5. allospecifics
  6. allosperm
  7. allosperms
  8. allostasis
  9. allostatic
  10. allostatically
  11. allosteric

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: allosperm (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “allosperm.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/allosperm. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.