Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun A segment of the perianth of a flower in which the calyx and corolla (which make up the perianth) are nearly indistinguishable, as in tulips or lilies. The tepals are equivalent to the petals and sepals.
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun In botany, an individual segment of a perianth, whether sepal or petal.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun (Bot.), rare A division of a perianth.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun botany One of the component parts of the
perianth , the outermost whorls of flower parts, especially when the perianth is not divided into twowhorls of unequal appearance.
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun an undifferentiated part of a perianth that cannot be distinguished as a sepal or a petal (as in lilies and tulips)
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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The ancestral state in other characters is equivocal: e.g., bisexual vs. unisexual flowers, whorled vs. spiral floral phyllotaxis, presence vs. absence of tepal differentiation, anatropous vs. orthotropous ovules.
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Uaxac ahau; paxci chakanputun; oxlahunkal hab cu tepal chacanputun tumen Ytza [139-1] unincob; ca talob u tzaclob yotochob tucaten; ca u zatahob be chakanputun; lay u katunil [139-2] biciob ahYtzaob yalan che, yalan haban, yalan ak ti numyaob.
The Maya Chronicles Brinton's Library Of Aboriginal American Literature, Number 1 Various 1868
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Hun ahau; lahunkal hab cu tepal chicħen Ytza, ca paxi ca binob t cahtal chakanputun ti yanhi yotochob ahYtzaob kuyan uinicobi.
The Maya Chronicles Brinton's Library Of Aboriginal American Literature, Number 1 Various 1868
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The expression _multepal_, from _mul_, to do an act jointly, or in common, and _tepal_, to govern, is interesting as showing that the government of the country in its golden days of prosperity was not one of an autocratic monarch, but a league or confederation of the principal chiefs of the peninsula.
The Maya Chronicles Brinton's Library Of Aboriginal American Literature, Number 1 Various 1868
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