placenta
An organ in most mammals during gestation that supplies food and oxygen to the foetus and passes back waste. It is on the wall of the uterus and links to the foetus through the umbilical cord. It is expelled after birth.
Other meanings
In flowering plants, the part of the ovary where ovules develop; in non-flowering plants where the spores develop.
A kind of
- reproductive structure
Related words
- placentation
- placentiform
- placentitis
- placentome
- pseudoplacenta
- subplacenta
- placenta cake
- placenta praevia
- placental
- placentary
- placentiferous
Example sentences
Word history
From Latin "placenta" (flat cake).
Where this comes from
This definition is adapted from “placenta” on Wiktionary, by its contributors; example sentences are from Tatoeba, credited to their authors above; related-word lists use Open English WordNet (CC BY 4.0, based on Princeton WordNet), published under CC BY-SA 4.0. This page is published under the same licence.