Trigynous

Part of speech: adjective

Definitions

1. Bearing three distinct pistils or carpels in the flower structure
2. Possessing three styles or female reproductive organs within a single flower
3. Characterized by the presence of three pistils in the floral anatomy

Etymology: "Trigynous" is a botanical term describing a flower with three styles (the stalks that carry the stigma, where pollen lands). It is built from two Greek-derived parts: "tri-", from Greek "treis" meaning "three," and "-gynous," from Greek "gynē," meaning "woman" in the sense of a female or pistil-bearing part. Botanists use the "-gynous" ending in a family of words for the number of styles or carpels in a flower, so a flower with one style is "monogynous," one with two is "digynous," and one with three is "trigynous." The formation is a plain technical coinage from classical roots, created by botanists when they needed precise words for counting floral parts. Ancient Greek writers had no need for such a term, so the word is a modern scientific construction rather than something inherited from antiquity.