viviparous
adjective
Simple meaning
Being born alive, as are most mammals, some reptiles, and a few fish.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
vyviperuhsSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
vaɪˈvɪpɚəs
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
adjective
of an animal or animal species
Being born alive, as are most mammals, some reptiles, and a few fish (as opposed to being laid as an egg and subsequently hatching, as do most birds and many other species).
of a plant or plant species
Arising from an embryo that develops from the outset (rather than from a true seed that then germinates).
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: (of an animal or animal species) Being born alive, as are most mammals, some reptiles, and a few fish (as opposed to being laid as an egg and subsequently hatching, as do most birds and many other species).
Used this way, viviparous is a specialist word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. This is a scientific use: it names something precisely within a field of study, so it appears in research and teaching more than in conversation.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Specialist/technical
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Specialized
- Connotation
- Clinical and technical
- Usage feel
- Technical and specialized
Where it naturally appears
- Science
- Academic writing
- Technical/specialist writing
Usage note
In general conversation this sense usually needs explaining — outside its field, people reach for a plainer word.
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
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Antonyms
Sense: being born alive or as are most mammals
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.