sphragides
sphragides is the plural of sphragide.
sphragides is the plural of sphragis.
Meaning of sphragide
Noun
sphragide (countable and uncountable, plural sphragides)
- An aluminous earth of a grayish yellow color; a medicinal clay.
- Dr. Hawks says it is found in Lemnos, sometimes called Terra Lemnia, and used in medicine. It is sometimes called sphragide.1860, Archaeologia Americana
- Synonyms:
- Lemnian earth, Lemnian bole
Meaning of sphragis
Noun
sphragis (plural sphragides)
- A mating plug in the genital opening of a female, formed from a waxy secretion deposited by a male during mating.
- The plastic mass begins to harden quite rapidly, probably within a few minutes but, as largely hollow sphragides have been dissected from pairs killed in copula, possibly more than one ejaculation may be required to complete the body of the sphragis.1999, Roger Laurence Kitching, Biology of Australian Butterflies, page 129
- Synonym of sphragide.
- This made Lenian earth the first sgillated medicinal earth and wherever in literature the term terra sigillata appears without a location suffix, it refers to Lemnian earth, sometimes called Lemnia sphragis which is Greek for terra sigillata from Lemnos.2003, W. Rudolph Reinbacher, Healing Earths: The Third Leg of Medicine : a History of Minerals in Medicine with Rare Illustrations from 300 to 1000 Years Ago
- Synonyms:
- sphragide
Questions about sphragides
- What is sphragides the plural of?
- Sphragides is the plural of sphragide.
Words near sphragides in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: sphragides (page history and authors); sphragide (page history and authors); sphragis (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: “sphragides.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/sphragides. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.