Word.ws English Dictionary

metastoma

metastoma noun: a median elevation behind the mouth in the arthropods.

Noun

metastoma (plural metastomas or metastomata)

  1. A median elevation behind the mouth in the arthropods.
  2. A ventral single plate located in the opisthosoma of some non-arachnid chelicerates in the extinct genus Houia which is involved in feeding and manipulating food.
  3. A structure found in some mosses and liverworts that covers the mouth of the capsule from which spores are released.

Forms of metastoma

pluralmetastomas
pluralmetastomata
alternative formmetastome

Origin of metastoma

From meta- (“behind”) + στόμα (stóma, “mouth”).

Questions about metastoma

What does metastoma mean?
Metastoma means a median elevation behind the mouth in the arthropods.
What part of speech is metastoma?
Metastoma is a noun.
What is the plural of metastoma?
The plural of metastoma is metastomas.

Words near metastoma in the dictionary

  1. metastins
  2. metastisize
  3. metastisized
  4. metastisizes
  5. metastisizing
  6. metastoma
  7. metastomas
  8. metastomata
  9. metastome
  10. metastomes
  11. metastomial

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: metastoma (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: “metastoma.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/metastoma. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.