Definitions

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

  • noun One of the paired female reproductive organs that produce eggs and female sex hormones in humans and other vertebrates.
  • noun An analogous gland in an invertebrate animal, such as a flatworm or a mollusk.
  • noun Botany The ovule-bearing lower part of a pistil that ripens into a fruit.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • Of or pertaining to an ovation.
  • noun That part of a female animal in which ova, eggs, or germs are generated and matured; the essential female organ of reproduction, corresponding to the testes of the male; the female genital gland or germ-gland; the ovarium.
  • noun In botany, a closed case or receptacle, the lower section of the pistil, inclosing the ovules or young seeds, and ultimately becoming the fruit.

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

  • noun (Bot.) That part of the pistil which contains the seed, and in most flowering plants develops into the fruit. See Illust. of flower.
  • noun (Zoöl. & Anat.) The essential female reproductive organ in which the ova are produced. See Illust. of Discophora.

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

  • noun anatomy A female reproductive organ, often paired, that produces ova and in mammals secretes the hormones estrogen and progesterone.
  • noun botany The lower part of a pistil or carpel that bears ovules and ripens into fruit.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun the organ that bears the ovules of a flower
  • noun (vertebrates) one of usually two organs that produce ova and secrete estrogen and progesterone

Etymologies

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

[New Latin ōvārium, from Latin ōvum, egg; see awi- in Indo-European roots.]

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Examples

  • As part of this study, a small portion of the ovary is surgically removed before starting cancer therapy.

    Fertility Preservation Program 2010

  • Fruit, in addition to being a ripened plant ovary, is designed to get animals to poop on the seeds.

    Five Funny Scientific Ideas | Heretical Ideas Magazine 2008

  • Two Mothers/Two Aunts: If a woman conceives a baby thanks to her sister's ovary, is she the baby's mother or aunt?

    Medpundit 2005

  • Two Mothers/Two Aunts: If a woman conceives a baby thanks to her sister's ovary, is she the baby's mother or aunt?

    Archive 2005-06-01 2005

  • The energetic imbalance of an overactive right ovary occurs when a woman takes on more projects than she can energetically sustain.

    Wild Feminine Tami Lynn Kent 2011

  • The energetic imbalance of an absent right ovary occurs when a woman uses her creative energy but fails to maintain ownership of her creative direction.

    Wild Feminine Tami Lynn Kent 2011

  • The energetic imbalance of an overactive right ovary occurs when a woman takes on more projects than she can energetically sustain.

    Wild Feminine Tami Lynn Kent 2011

  • The energetic imbalance of an absent right ovary occurs when a woman uses her creative energy but fails to maintain ownership of her creative direction.

    Wild Feminine Tami Lynn Kent 2011

  • In the peach and cherry the pistil has three parts, a lower rounded, somewhat swollen part called the ovary, a slender stem arising from it called the style, and a slight enlargement at the top of the style called the stigma.

    The First Book of Farming Charles Landon Goodrich

  • We have seen that the ovule from the ovary is the female egg, or principle.

    The Eugenic Marriage, Vol 2 (of 4) A Personal Guide to the New Science of Better Living and Better Babies

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