Word.ws English Dictionary

pupa

Syllables: pu·pa/ˈpjuːpə/

pupa noun: an insect in the development stage between larva and adult.

pupa: an insect in the development stage between larva and adult
Image: Didier Descouens, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun

pupa (plural pupae or pupas or (archaic) pupæ)

  1. An insect in the development stage between larva and adult.
    • The public is the pupae of the purposely purblind […]1959 April 21, Walt Kelly, Pogo: The Complete Syndicated Comic Strips, Seattle, Wash.: Fantagraphics Books, published 2011, →ISBN, page 34
    Synonyms:
    pupe

pupa meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Bengali and Malayalam

pupa in Hindi

insect
प्यूपा pyūpā

pupa in Tamil

கூட்டுப்புழு, பியூப்பா, கண்மணி

pupa in Bengali

insect
পিউপা piupa

pupa in Malayalam

കോശസ്ഥകീടം, കൂടപ്പുഴു
More languagesFewer languages
pupa in Kannada
ಪೊರೆಹುಳು, ಗೂಡುಹುಳು
pupa in Tagalog
tilas
pupa in Arabic
خَادِرَة ḵādira, شَرْنَقَة šarnaqa
pupa in Malay
pupa
pupa in Indonesian
kepompong
pupa in Persian
شفیره šafire
pupa in Thai
ดักแด้ dàk-dɛ̂ɛ
pupa in Vietnamese
nhộng

Synonyms of pupa

Forms of pupa

pluralpupae
pluralpupas
plural (archaic)pupæ

Plural of pupa: pupae or pupas

Origin of pupa

Borrowed from New Latin, from a special use of Latin pūpa (“little girl; doll, puppet”). Doublet of pupe; compare also puppet, puppy.

Words formed from pupa

Words that rhyme with pupa

Questions about pupa

What does pupa mean?
Pupa means an insect in the development stage between larva and adult.
What is pupa in Hindi?
Pupa in Hindi is प्यूपा (pyūpā). See Pupa meaning in Hindi.
What part of speech is pupa?
Pupa is a noun.
How do you pronounce pupa?
Pupa is pronounced /ˈpjuːpə/.
What is the plural of pupa?
The plural of pupa is pupae.

Words near pupa in the dictionary

  1. pup hood
  2. pup hoods
  3. pup play
  4. pup tent
  5. pup tents
  6. pupa
  7. pupacidal
  8. pupacide
  9. pupacides
  10. pupadom
  11. pupae

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: pupa (page history and authors); pupa (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); pupa (Malayalam Wiktionary) (page history and authors); pupa (Kannada 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.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-pupa.ogg.

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