Spermatophores

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A packet containing sperm that a male animal deposits directly into or near a female, found in many invertebrates and some amphibians
2. A small sac of sperm cells produced by certain male animals and passed to females during mating, common among insects and salamanders
3. The protective capsule or mass holding sperm that some male creatures transfer to a female as part of fertilization

Etymology: "Spermatophores" is the plural of "spermatophore," and the word is built from two Greek-derived parts: "spermato-," from Greek "sperma" meaning seed, and "-phore," from Greek "-phoros," meaning bearing or carrying. Put together, a spermatophore is literally a seed-carrier, which describes the small packet exactly. The word is a modern scientific coinage rather than an ancient one. Zoologists assembled it from classical Greek building blocks to name a structure they needed a label for, so the Greek roots were never used for this particular object in antiquity. The pattern follows other scientific terms in which "-phore" marks something that carries or bears another thing.