Word.ws English Dictionary

opercule

opercule is the alternative form of operculum.

Meaning of operculum

Noun

operculum (plural opercula)

  1. A covering flap in animals and insects, such as a gill cover or the lid of nits.
    • Hyoliths […] have a small, conical calcium carbonate shell, with a lid called an operculum.2017 January 18, Susannah Lydon, The Guardian
  2. The lidlike portion of a moss sporangium or of a fruit that detaches to allow the dispersal of spores or seeds.
  3. A gum flap covering (part of) a partially erupted tooth, usually a wisdom tooth.
  4. A structure which serves as a cover or lid.
    • I lifted the circular operculum from its place and laid it carefully on the bale.1900 December – 1901 August, H[erbert] G[eorge] Wells, chapter IX, in The First Men in the Moon, London: George Newnes, […], published 1901, →OCLC, page 95
  5. One of several flaps of cerebral cortex covering the insula.

Forms of opercule

pluralopercules

Questions about opercule

What is opercule the alternative form of?
Opercule is the alternative form of operculum.

Words near opercule in the dictionary

  1. operculars
  2. operculate
  3. operculated
  4. operculates
  5. operculation
  6. opercule
  7. operculectomies
  8. operculectomy
  9. opercules
  10. operculiferous
  11. operculiform

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: opercule (page history and authors); operculum (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.

Last updated:

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