operculum

Borrowed from Latin operculum.

operculum (plural opercula)

1. (zoology) A covering flap in animals, such as a gill cover.
   • 2017, Susannah Lydon, The Guardian, 18 January:

     Hyoliths […] have a small, conical calcium carbonate shell, with a lid called an operculum.

2. (botany) The lidlike portion of a moss sporangium or of a fruit that detaches to allow the dispersal of spores or seeds.
3. A structure which serves as a cover or lid.
   • 1901, H. G. Wells, The First Men in the Moon, chapter IX, page 95

     I lifted the circular operculum from its place and laid it carefully on the bale.

• opercle

• preoperculum
• interoperculum
• suboperculum

From operiō (“I close”) +‎ -culum.

• (Classical) IPA^(key): /oˈper.ku.lum/, [ɔˈpɛr.kʊ.ɫũː]

operculum n (genitive operculī); second declension

1. cover, covering

Second declension.

• English: opercle, operculum
• French: opercule
• Italian: opercolo
• Portuguese: opérculo
• Spanish: opérculo

• operculum in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• operculum in Charlton T. Lewis (1891) An Elementary Latin Dictionary, New York: Harper & Brothers
• operculum in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire Illustré Latin-Français, Hachette
• operculum in Harry Thurston Peck, editor (1898) Harper's Dictionary of Classical Antiquities, New York: Harper & Brothers