noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun

1. 1
   The earliest gonadal changes of puberty, when (in response to pituitary gonadotropins), the ovaries in girls and the testes in boys begin to grow and increase the production of the sex steroids, especially estradiol and testosterone. uncountable

Etymology

From gonad + -arche.

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.