Plants & CreaturesGreek → English
Spore
/spɔːr/noun
A single reproductive cell shed by fungi, ferns and mosses that can grow into a new organism without fertilisation.
The Greek roots
σπορά
sporá
a sowing, seed
Literally: “a sowing”
Follow a root:σπορά1 word
The story of the word
Botanists borrowed σπορά in 1836 for the dust that ferns and mushrooms shed, a reproductive body needing no partner. The Greek noun means a sowing, from σπείρειν, to scatter seed by hand. That verb also produced diaspora, a scattering abroad, and sporadic, turning up here and there the way broadcast seed does.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → Modern Latin → English
- First recorded
- 1836
Same family
diasporasporadicsporangiumendospore
In a sentence
Leave the cap on paper overnight and the spores print the gills in brown.