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neotenin

neotenin noun: a juvenile hormone, present in insects, which ensures growth of the larva while preventing metamorphosis.

Noun

neotenin (uncountable)

  1. A juvenile hormone, present in insects, which ensures growth of the larva while preventing metamorphosis.
    • Moreover, as we shall see, evidence has accumulated to show that this hormone brings about suppression of adult characters by favouring the differentiation of larval characters. It has therefore been called fore preference the 'juvenile hormone'. If a Greek term is preferred it might be called...1954, F. W. Wrigglesworth, The Physiology of Insect Metamorphosis
    • Neotenin, also known as the juvenile hormone, is secreted by the corpora allata.1974, Dennis William Wood, Principles of Animal Physiology, page 318

Origin of neotenin

From neoteny + -in.

Questions about neotenin

What does neotenin mean?
Neotenin means a juvenile hormone, present in insects, which ensures growth of the larva while preventing metamorphosis.
What part of speech is neotenin?
Neotenin is a noun.

Words near neotenin in the dictionary

  1. neotenia
  2. neotenic
  3. neotenic complex syndrome
  4. neotenics
  5. neotenies
  6. neotenin
  7. neotenize
  8. neotenized
  9. neotenizes
  10. neotenizing
  11. neotenous

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: neotenin (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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