Antherozoid

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A free-swimming male reproductive cell produced by certain algae, mosses and ferns that uses its whip-like flagella to reach the female egg
2. The motile sperm cell of some plants and algae, propelled by flagella through water to fertilize an egg cell
3. A male sex cell with flagella found in certain lower plants, which swims actively to join with the female gamete during fertilization

Etymology: Anthers are the pollen-bearing parts of a flower, and "antherozoid" was built from that same Greek botanical vocabulary. The first element comes from Ancient Greek "anthērós," meaning "flowery," which in turn relates to "anthos," "flower." The second element is "zōion," "animal," and the suffix "-oid" means "resembling," so the whole term literally means something like "flower-animal-like." The idea was that these tiny motile cells, seen swimming in plant pollen, looked like miniature animals. The word is a modern scientific coinage, formed from classical roots in the 19th century, not a term that ancient Greeks would have recognised. Botanists studying plant reproduction, particularly in mosses, ferns and other plants whose male cells swim, needed a name for these free-swimming male gametes, and the compound was assembled from existing Greek building blocks to describe them.

Synonyms: spermatozoid