Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • Having many valves. Formerly specifically applied
  • noun A multivalve zoölogical shell.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun (Zoöl.) Any mollusk which has a shell composed of more than two pieces.
  • adjective Having many valves.
  • adjective (Zoöl.) Many-valved; having more than two valves; -- said of certain shells, as the chitons.

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

  • adjective Having multiple valves (in any context)
  • noun zoology A multivalve mollusc

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

multi- +‎ valve

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Examples

  • The national fuel economy average bottomed out at 19.3 mpg in 2004, and it has risen slowly but steadily since 2005, driven by advancing powertrain technology, such as multivalve engines, turbocharging, and continuously variable transmissions.

    Overall fuel economy continues climbing, but more slowly 2010

  • The national fuel economy average bottomed out at 19.3 mpg in 2004, and it has risen slowly but steadily since 2005, driven by advancing powertrain technology, such as multivalve engines, turbocharging, and continuously variable transmissions.

    Overall fuel economy continues climbing, but more slowly 2010

  • A smaller, contemporary multivalve V6 is standard, but the extra-cost optional engine (due out later) will be a EcoBoost turbocharged four-cylinder that Ford promises will have more torque and better mileage than the V6.

    On the trail to previewing the next-generation Ford Explorer 2010

  • A smaller, contemporary multivalve V6 is standard, but the extra-cost optional engine due out later will be a EcoBoost turbocharged four-cylinder that Ford promises will have more torque and better mileage than the V6.

    On the trail to previewing the next-generation Ford Explorer 2010

  • BP officials said Monday that the main question was why the huge multivalve system known as a blowout preventer, made by

    BP to Come Under Senate Scrutiny 2010

  • His heart was multivalve; he could love a dozen at once in various modes and gradations, press a dozen hands in a day, gaze into a dozen pair of eyes with unfeigned tenderness; while the last pair wept for him, he was looking into the next.

    Malbone: an Oldport romance 1869

  • His heart was multivalve; he could love a dozen at once in various modes and gradations, press a dozen hands in a day, gaze into

    Malbone: an Oldport Romance Thomas Wentworth Higginson 1867

  • The story has its origin in the peculiar formation of the little mollusc which inhabits the multivalve shell, the _Pentalasmis anatifera_, which by

    Notes and Queries, Number 201, September 3, 1853 A Medium of Inter-communication for Literary Men, Artists, Antiquaries, Genealogists, etc Various 1852

  • In fact, M. Defrance, in a work* full of new and ingenious ideas, not only recognizes this preponderance of the univalves in the number of the species, but also observes that out of 5500 fossil univalve, bivalve and multivalve shells, contained in his rich collections, there are 3066 univalve, 2108 bivalve, and 326 multivalve; the univalve fossils are therefore to the bivalve as three to two.

    Travels to the Equinoctial Regions of America 1851

  • In fact, M. Defrance, in a work* full of new and ingenious ideas, not only recognizes this preponderance of the univalves in the number of the species, but also observes that out of 5500 fossil univalve, bivalve and multivalve shells, contained in his rich collections, there are 3066 univalve, 2108 bivalve, and 326 multivalve; the univalve fossils are therefore to the bivalve as three to two.

    Personal Narrative of Travels to the Equinoctial Regions of America, During the Year 1799-1804 — Volume 3 Alexander von Humboldt 1814

Comments

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  • 1753 E. CHAMBERS Cycl. Suppl. Suppl. s.v. Pollicipes, They are multivalve flat shells, of a triangular figure, each being composed of several laminæ.

    July 8, 2008