Ootheca

//əʊəˈθiːkə// noun

noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    An egg case of any of the orthopteroid insects (such as cockroaches and mantids).

    "Since the founding of the colony it had been a tradition to unload oothecae – egg sacs – in the cabinets so the younglings would be near the principal food stocks."

  2. 2
    The theca or sporangium of ferns.

Synonyms

All synonyms
eggnest

Example

More examples

"Since the founding of the colony it had been a tradition to unload oothecae – egg sacs – in the cabinets so the younglings would be near the principal food stocks."

Etymology

From oo- (“egg-”) + theca (“sheath”).

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