Word.ws English Dictionary

caudicle

caudicle noun: a slender, elastic process to which the masses of pollen in orchidaceous plants are attached.

Noun

caudicle (plural caudicles)

  1. A slender, elastic process to which the masses of pollen in orchidaceous plants are attached.
    • A pollinium when highly developed consists of a mass of pollen-grains, affixed to an elastic foot-stalk or caudicle, and this to a little mass of extremely viscid matter.1858, Charles Darwin, The Origin of Species, volume 2, Harvard Classics Edition, published 1909, page 251
    • The structure of the rostellum and caudicles of the pollinia are worth noting. There are four pollinia, separated into two pairs. Each pair is attached to a long caudicle ending in a mass of sticky material or a distinct, viscid disc, except that in one species, I. intermedia, the two caudicles...1996, Rebecca Tyson Northen, Miniature Orchids and How to Grow Them, page 86
    Synonyms:
    stipe

caudicle meaning in Tamil

caudicle in Tamil

சிறுவாற்றண்டு

Examples of caudicle in a sentence

  • The structure of the rostellum and caudicles of the pollinia are worth noting.1996, Rebecca Tyson Northen, Miniature Orchids and How to Grow Them, page 86:
  • The caudicle holds the pollen grains together (Proctor and Harder 1994; Fig. 1).2000, E. Pacini, G. G. Franchi, “Types of Pollen Dispersal Units in Monocots”, in Karen Wilson, David Morrison, editors, Monocots...

Synonyms of caudicle

Forms of caudicle

pluralcaudicles
alternative formcaudicula

Origin of caudicle

Diminutive of Latin cauda (“tail, appendage”).

Questions about caudicle

What does caudicle mean?
Caudicle means a slender, elastic process to which the masses of pollen in orchidaceous plants are attached.
What is caudicle in Tamil?
Caudicle in Tamil is சிறுவாற்றண்டு. See Caudicle meaning in Tamil.
How do you use caudicle in a sentence?
The structure of the rostellum and caudicles of the pollinia are worth noting.
What part of speech is caudicle?
Caudicle is a noun.
What is the plural of caudicle?
The plural of caudicle is caudicles.

Words near caudicle in the dictionary

  1. caudex
  2. caudexes
  3. caudical
  4. caudices
  5. caudiciform
  6. caudicle
  7. caudicles
  8. caudicula
  9. caudiculae
  10. caudiculas
  11. caudiform

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: caudicle (page history and authors); caudicle (Tamil Wiktionary) (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: “caudicle.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/caudicle. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.