Oligandrous

Part of speech: adjective

Definitions

1. Having a small number of males in a population or group
2. Characterized by the presence of only a few males within an organism or species
3. Denoting a condition where male individuals are scarce or limited in number

Etymology: "Oligandrous" is built from two Ancient Greek elements: "oligos", meaning few or small, and "anēr" (genitive "andros"), meaning man or male. The "-androus" ending is the adjectival form of the same root that appears in words like "polyandry" and "androgynous," so the term describes a condition in which males are few. In practice, the adjective is most often applied to biology and the study of populations, where a group or species with a shortage of males is described this way. Because the root "anēr" contrasts with "gynē" (woman) in Greek, the term sits naturally in a family of Greek-derived words that sort living things by sex, though "oligandrous" itself adds only the idea of scarcity to the male element.