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freemartin

Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A female animal, usually a calf, that is born as the twin of a male animal and is sterile because of having abnormal internal reproductive organs.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun A female calf, born as twin with a bull calf, but sexually imperfect (often infertile).

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Probably free-, of unknown origin + an element akin to Scots mart, ox or cow fattened for slaughter (as freemartins often are) (from Scottish Gaelic, from Old Irish), perhaps influenced by the name of St. Martin, of Tours, because cattle were traditionally slaughtered and salted for winter use on Martinmas.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Etymology unknown.

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Examples

  • She also bore another wildman, a science-wallah, a eunuch, a freemartin, and the Princess of the Farther Spaces.

    April 5th, 2009 m_francis 2009

  • You get a freemartin when a female calf has, a twin brother.

    I Don’t Understand ? Jack Varnell 2010

  • She hadn't intended to say - "Do I look to you like a freemartin?"

    I Don’t Understand ? Jack Varnell 2010

  • You can indulge in any number of pleasant vices with a freemartin and run no risks of having your eyes put out by your son's mistress.

    Brave New World 2009

  • You can indulge in any number of pleasant vices with a freemartin and run no risks of having your eyes put out by your son's mistress.

    Archive 2009-08-01 2009

  • The freemartin story culminates in the report of Billingham, Brent and Medawar describing an acquired immunological tolerance produced by neonatal injection of donor cells into a future allograft recipient (14).

    Joseph E. Murray - Nobel Lecture 1990

  • Following this Anderson in 1949 reported successful skin allografts between the freemartin and the normal male (13).

    Joseph E. Murray - Nobel Lecture 1990

  • The trail does not appear again until 1917 when Lillie, not content with mere descriptions, dissected the placentae of several pairs of freemartin cattle and noted the placental intermingling of blood between these differently sexed twins (11).

    Joseph E. Murray - Nobel Lecture 1990

  • Hunter's description of freemartin cattle in 1779 (10).

    Joseph E. Murray - Nobel Lecture 1990

  • Sir Michael Woodruff, the pioneer transplant surgeon in Edinburgh, confirmed the freemartin concept in man when he found a pair of twins, one male the other female, who shared elements of different red cell types.

    Joseph E. Murray - Nobel Lecture 1990

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Comments

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  • treeseed commented on the word freemartin

    Female born twin to a bull calf (about 9 out of 10 of these will not conceive). A sterile heifer born twin with a bull.

    February 4, 2008

  • chained_bear commented on the word freemartin

    "She did not set up as a moralist of any kind, she said, but she would not stomach an open affront from anyone on earth, man, woman, or freemartin."

    --Patrick O'Brian, The Far Side of the World, 33

    February 19, 2008