Word.ws English Dictionary

xenoparous

/ˈzɛn.əpərəs/

xenoparous adjective: of or relating to a reproductive strategy in which a female produces offspring of a different species without a process of hybridization.

Adjective

xenoparous (not comparable)

  1. Of or relating to a reproductive strategy in which a female produces offspring of a different species without a process of hybridization.
    • We suggest defining such females as xenoparous, meaning they need to produce individuals of another species as part of their life cycle. This shows the evolution of xenoparity (xeno-, meaning ‘foreign, strange, different’, and -parity, meaning ‘produce, bring forth, give birth’), which is the need...2025 September 3, Y. Juvé, C. Lutrat, A. Ha, et al., “One mother for two species via obligate cross-species cloning in ants”, in Nature, →DOI, archived from the original on 23 Sep 2025
    • In a discovery that sounds almost like science fiction, scientists have found that queen ants of the Iberian harvester species (Messor ibericus) can produce offspring not just of their own kind but from an entirely different species. This rare phenomenon, called xenoparous reproduction, has never...2025 July 9, “Unbelievable discovery: Queen ants produce offspring of two different species, say scientists”, in The Times of India, archived from the original on 09 Sep 2025

Examples of xenoparous in a sentence

  • We suggest defining such females as xenoparous, meaning they need to produce individuals of another species as part of their life cycle.2025 September 3, Y. Juvé, C. Lutrat, A. Ha, et al., “One mother for two species via obligate cross-species cloning in ants”, in Nature...
  • This rare phenomenon, called xenoparous reproduction, has never been observed before in the animal kingdom.2025 July 9, “Unbelievable discovery: Queen ants produce offspring of two different species, say scientists”, in The Times of India...

Origin of xenoparous

From Latin xeno- (“strangeness”) + pariō (“give birth, produce, bring forth”), equivalent to xeno- + -parous. Coined by Yannick Juvé and colleagues in 2025.

Questions about xenoparous

What does xenoparous mean?
Xenoparous means of or relating to a reproductive strategy in which a female produces offspring of a different species without a process of hybridization.
How do you use xenoparous in a sentence?
We suggest defining such females as xenoparous, meaning they need to produce individuals of another species as part of their life cycle.
What part of speech is xenoparous?
Xenoparous is an adjective.
How do you pronounce xenoparous?
Xenoparous is pronounced /ˈzɛn.əpərəs/.

Words near xenoparous in the dictionary

  1. xenoparasite
  2. xenoparasites
  3. xenoparasitic
  4. xenoparasitism
  5. xenoparity
  6. xenoparous
  7. xenopathology
  8. xenopatient
  9. xenopatients
  10. xenopeltid
  11. xenopeltids

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: xenoparous (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: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Sapaa-xenoparous.wav.

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