calyptra

English

Ripening moss sporophyte shedding its calyptra

Bud of a flower of a grape shedding its calyptra

Calyptrae splitting off the opening buds of Eucalyptus ficifolia

Calyptra(1) over a fly's haltere(3)

Etymology

From Ancient Greek καλύπτρα (kalúptra, “covering or veiling”).

Noun

calyptra (plural calyptras or calyptrae)

1. (botany) In bryophytes, a thin, hood of tissue that forms from the archegonium and covers the developing sporophyte and is shed as it ripens.
   • 1992, Rudolf M[athias] Schuster, The Hepaticae and Anthocerotae of North America: East of the Hundredth Meridian, volume V, Chicago, Ill.: Field Museum of Natural History, →ISBN, page 4:

     (b) sporophyte with foot reduced, the entire sporophyte enveloped by the calyptra, which is ± stipitate at the base.

2. (botany) any cap-like covering of a flower or fruit, such as the operculum over the unopened buds of Eucalyptus flowers
3. (botany) Any of various coverings at the tips of structures, in the terminology of various authors; for example rootcaps and the apical cells of trichomes.
4. (entomology) In flies such as the housefly, Musca, in the taxonomic order Diptera, zoological section Schizophora, subsection Calyptrata, the calyptra is a membranous rearward extension of the forewing; it covers the haltere.

Derived terms

• calyptrate
• calyptriform

 

Translations

thin, hood-like tissue

• Italian: caliptra (it) f
• Polish: czepek (pl) m
• Portuguese: caliptra f
• Spanish: caliptra (es) f

Latin

Etymology

Borrowed from Ancient Greek κᾰλῠ́πτρᾱ (kalúptrā).

Pronunciation

• (Classical Latin) IPA^(key): /kaˈlyp.tra/, [käˈlʲʏpt̪rä]
• (modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): /kaˈlip.tra/, [käˈlipt̪rä]

Noun

calyptra f (genitive calyptrae); first declension

1. A kind of veil used by women

Declension

First-declension noun.

	singular	plural
nominative	calyptra	calyptrae
genitive	calyptrae	calyptrārum
dative	calyptrae	calyptrīs
accusative	calyptram	calyptrās
ablative	calyptrā	calyptrīs
vocative	calyptra	calyptrae

References

• “calyptra”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• calyptra in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire illustré latin-français, Hachette.