oviduct

Definitions

  • WordNet 3.6
    • n oviduct either of a pair of tubes conducting the egg from the ovary to the uterus
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Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary
    • n Oviduct (Anat) A tube, or duct, for the passage of ova from the ovary to the exterior of the animal or to the part where further development takes place. In mammals the oviducts are also called Fallopian tubes.
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Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
    • n oviduct The excretory duct of the female genital gland, or female gonaduct; a passage for the ovum or egg from the ovary of an animal: chiefly applied to such a structure in an oviparous animal, not differentiated into Fallopian tube, womb, and vagina. An oviduct exists in most vertebrates, and is usually paired, there being one to each ovary, but often single, the duct of one or the other side remaining undeveloped, as in birds. When well formed, as in birds and other animals which lay large eggs to be hatched outside the body, the oviduct is a muscuiomembranous tube or canal, of which one end is in relation with or applied to the ovary, and the other debouches in the cloaca, the tube being held in place by a special mesentery or mesometrium. In the course of the oviduct its mucous membrane acquires special characteristics, and secretes different substances; so that the ovum, escaping from the ovary as a ball of yellow yolk, becomes successively coated with white albumen, with a soft egg-pod, and finally, as in birds, with a hard chalky shell. The oviducts of the lowest mammals, which are oviparous, are of similar character; but in most mammals the pair of oviducts coalesce in the greater part of their length, whence result a single vagina and womb, with a pair of Fallopian tubes or oviducts in a restricted sense. A womb or uterus is simply a specialized part of an oviduct, where the ovum is detained long enough to be developed into a fetus and born alive. The oviducts of invertebrates, where any exist, are as diverse in character as the ovaries. See ovary, and cuts under Dendrocæla, Dibranchiata, Epizoa, and germarium.
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Chambers's Twentieth Century Dictionary
    • n Oviduct ō′vi-dukt a duct or passage for the egg in animals, from the ovary.
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Etymology

Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary
Ov,um + duct,: cf. F. oviducte,

Usage

In literature:

A hasty touch of the oviduct, first here, then there, on the green skin of the pea-pod, and that is all.
"A Book of Exposition" by Homer Heath Nugent
I surprised the female motionless, with the oviduct planted vertically in the soil.
"Social Life in the Insect World" by J. H. Fabre
Double-yolked eggs are larger than normal and may injure the oviduct when expelled.
"The Veterinarian" by Chas. J. Korinek
The presence of an egg in the oviduct of No.
"Birds from Coahuila, Mexico" by Emil K. Urban
There is no separate opening for the oviduct into the outer world.
"The Renewal of Life; How and When to Tell the Story to the Young" by Margaret Warner Morley
Farther, it appears that the queen can lay no male eggs until those of workers, occupying the first place in the oviducts, are discharged.
"New observations on the natural history of bees" by Francis Huber
I have seen the egg leave the oviduct; it is then what it will be later, but lighter in colour.
"The Glow-Worm and Other Beetles" by Jean Henri Fabre
Two oviducts in the female.
"Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 5, Slice 6" by Various
According to Miss N.M. Stevens the so-called oviduct acts only as a "sperm-duct" or receptaculum seminis.
"Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 5, Slice 7" by Various
When a yolk is full-grown it drops into the funnel-shaped mouth of the oviduct.
"Our Domestic Birds" by John H. Robinson
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In news:

Florida Museum of Natural History researchers examined the internal anatomy of the 17-foot, 7-inch snake Friday and found a state record 87 eggs in the python's oviducts.
marconews.com
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