calyx

English

The calyx of a flower is usually green. Its parts are called sepals.

A human kidney with the major and minor calyces labelled.

Alternative forms

• calix

Etymology

From Latin calyx, from Ancient Greek κάλυξ (kálux, “case of a bud, husk”). Doublet of chalice and kelch.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈkæ.lɪks/, /ˈkeɪ.lɪks/
• Rhymes: -ælɪks

Noun

calyx (plural calyces or calyxes)

1. (botany) The outermost whorl of flower parts, comprising the sepals, which covers and protects the petals as they develop.

   Meronym: sepal

   • 1905, Maude Gridley Peterson, How to Know Wild Fruits: A Guide to Plants When Not in Flower by Means of Fruit and Leaf‎^[1], Macmillan, page 202:

     Black crowberry. Empetrum nigrum. Crowberry Family. Fruit. — The black drupe is berrylike, globular, and incloses six to nine seedlike nutlets with a seed in each. The calyx is at the base and the stigma is at the apex. The drupes are solitary in the leaf axils. They are juicy, acid, edible, and serve as food for the Arctic birds.

2. (zoology, anatomy) Any of various cup-like structures.
   1. A chamber in the mammalian kidney through which urine passes.
   2. The crown containing the viscera of crinoids and similar echinoderms, entoprocts, and the polyps of some cnidarians.
   3. A funnel-shaped expansion of the vas deferens or oviduct of insects.
   4. A flattened cap of neuropil in the brain of insects.

Derived terms

• brachycalyx
• calyciferous
• calycoid
• calyxed
• calyx eye
• epicalyx
• glycocalyx
• nematocalyx
• porocalyx

Translations

the sepals of a flower

• Armenian: ծաղկաբաժակ (hy) (caġkabažak)
• Bulgarian: чашка f (čaška)
• Catalan: calze (ca) m
• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 花萼 (zh) (huā'è)

• Czech: kalich (cs) m
• Danish: bæger n
• Dutch: kelk (nl) m
• Finnish: verhiö (fi)
• French: calice (fr) m
• Galician: cáliz (gl) m
• German: Kelch (de) m, Calyx m
• Greek: κάλυκας (el) m (kálykas)

  Ancient: κάλυξ m (kálux)

• Icelandic: bikar (is) m
• Irish: cocán m
• Italian: calice (it) m
• Japanese: 萼 (ja) (がく, gaku), 蔕 (ja) (へた, heta) (of a fruit)
• Kazakh: тостағанша (tostağanşa)
• Marathi: पुष्पकोश (mr) ? (puṣpakoś)
• Ottoman Turkish: كم (kimm)
• Polish: kielich (pl) m
• Portuguese: cálice (pt) m
• Romanian: caliciu (ro) n
• Russian: ча́шечка (ru) f (čášečka)
• Serbo-Croatian:

  Cyrillic: ка̏леж m

  Roman: kȁlež (sh) m

• Spanish: cáliz (es) m
• Tagalog: santampok
• Turkish: çanak (tr)
• Ukrainian: ча́шечка f (čášečka)
• Vietnamese: đài hoa
• Welsh: calycs m, blodamlen f

anatomy: structure in kidney

• Catalan: calze (ca) m
• Finnish: munuaispikari
• Indonesian: kaliks
• Japanese: 杯 (ja) (はい, hai)
• Portuguese: cálice (pt) m
• Romanian: caliciu (ro) n
• Russian: чашеви́дная по́лость f (čaševídnaja pólostʹ), по́чечная ча́шка f (póčečnaja čáška)

zoology: crown of crinoid

• Finnish: lonkerokiehkura

Further reading

• calyx on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• calyx (botany) on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• calyx (anatomy) on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• Douglas Harper (2001–2025) “calyx”, in Online Etymology Dictionary.

Latin

Etymology

From Ancient Greek κάλυξ (kálux, “case of a bud, husk”).

Pronunciation

• (Classical Latin) IPA^(key): /ˈka.lyks/, [ˈkälʲʏks̠]
• (modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): /ˈka.liks/, [ˈkäːliks]
• Homophone: calix (pronunciations of ⟨y⟩ as /i/)

Noun

calyx m (genitive calycis); third declension

1. The bud, cup, or calyx of a flower or nut.
2. A plant of two kinds, resembling the arum, perhaps the monk's hood.
3. (by extension) The shell of fruits, pericarp.
4. (by extension) An eggshell.
5. A fitting on a Roman pipe

Declension

Third-declension noun.

	singular	plural
nominative	calyx	calycēs
genitive	calycis	calycum
dative	calycī	calycibus
accusative	calycem	calycēs
ablative	calyce	calycibus
vocative	calyx	calycēs

Derived terms

• calyculus

Descendants

• → English: calyx
• → Galician: cáliz
• → Italian: calice
• → Portuguese: cálice
• → Spanish: cáliz

See also

• calix

References

• https://web.archive.org/web/20160925020435/https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/calyx
• https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/calyx
• “calyx”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• calyx in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire illustré latin-français, Hachette.