fetus

• (UK) foetus
• (UK, rare) fœtus
• (obsolete, erroneous) phoetus, phœtus
• (obsolete, erroneous) faetus, fætus

Borrowed from Latin fētus (“offspring”). Doublet of fawn.

• IPA^(key): /ˈfiːtəs/

• Audio (UK)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -iːtəs

fetus (plural fetuses or fetus or (hypercorrect) feti or (misconstructed) fetii)

1. (Australia, Canada, US) An unborn or unhatched vertebrate showing signs of the mature animal.
   • 1963, John W Choate, Henry A. Thiede, University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry, Transcript, Volume 2

     Several feti were removed from every rats' uterus, stripped of their membranes and allowed to lie in the peritoneal cavity connected to the placenta by the umbilical cord and with the placenta still attached to the uterine wall.

2. (Australia, Canada, US) A human embryo after the eighth week of gestation.

   The sequence is: molecules in reproductive systems, then gametes, zygotes, morulas, blastocysts, and then fetuses.

• The form fetus is the primary spelling in the United States, Canada, Australia, and in the scientific community, whereas foetus is still commonly used in the United Kingdom and some other Commonwealth nations.
• The nominative/accusative plural of fētus in Latin is fētūs with lengthened second vowel. The hypercorrect plurals feti and fetii are thus comparable to the hypercorrect plural octopi of octopus (the Ancient Greek plural of octopus is octopodes).

• fetal
• fetus fetishist
• grandfetus
• multifetus

• fetus in fetu
• fetus papyraceus

• embryo

• Health Online

• EF-Tus, UTFSE, fuets

Borrowed from Latin fētus, attested from circa 1900.[1] Doublet of feda.

fetus m (plural fetus)

1. fetus

• fetal

• “fetus” in Diccionari de la llengua catalana, segona edició, Institut d’Estudis Catalans.
• “fetus” in Diccionari normatiu valencià, Acadèmia Valenciana de la Llengua.
• “fetus” in Diccionari català-valencià-balear, Antoni Maria Alcover and Francesc de Borja Moll, 1962.

• foetus

From Proto-Indo-European *dʰeh₁(y)-, see also Sanskrit धयति (dhayati), Avestan 𐬛𐬀𐬉𐬥𐬎‎ (daēnu), Old Armenian դիեմ (diem), Lithuanian žįsti and Old Church Slavonic доити (doiti).

• (Classical) IPA^(key): /ˈfeː.tus/, [ˈfeːt̪ʊs̠]
• (Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): /ˈfe.tus/, [ˈfɛːt̪us]

fētus (feminine fēta, neuter fētum); first/second-declension adjective

1. pregnant, full of young
2. fruitful, productive
3. youthful, young
4. of one who has recently given birth, of one that has newly delivered; nursing
   • 8 CE, Ovid, Fasti 5.177-178:

     dumque petit latebrās fētae catulōsque leaenae,
     ipse fuit Libycae praeda cruenta ferae

     And while he was seeking the hiding places and the cubs of a nursing lioness, he himself became the bloodstained prey of the Libyan wild [beast].
     (See Hyas.)

First/second-declension adjective.

• fēta

• “fetus”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press

fētus m (genitive fētūs); fourth declension

1. A bearing, birth, bringing forth.
2. Offspring, young, progeny.
3. Fruit, produce.
4. (figuratively) Growth, production.
5. (New Latin) A fetus.
   • 1842, Franciscus Arv[idus] Snellman, Dissertatio Academica Excerebrationis Fetus in Partu Legem Examinatura, Helsingforsiae: Ex officina typographica Frenckelliana, page 30:

     Postremo, comparatione inter excerebrationem fetus et sectionem caesaream ac partum praematurum artificialem facta, nobis apparuit, containdicatam esse excerebrationem: […]

     (please add an English translation of this quote)

Fourth-declension noun.

• Balkan Romance:
  • Aromanian: fet, fetu
  • Romanian: făt
• Italo-Romance:
  • Italian:

    Marche: fetu ⇒ fetone, fetaccia

  • >? Sicilian: fitu
• Insular Romance:
  • Sardinian: fetu, etu; fedu ⇒ fedale, avedali
• Borrowings:
  • → Catalan: fetus
  • → English: fetus, foetus
  • → French: fœtus
  • → Galician: feto
  • → Italian: feto
  • → Occitan: fètus
  • → Portuguese: feto
  • → Spanish: feto
  • → Tunisian Arabic: فيتوس‎ (fitus)
  • → Turkish: fetüs

• Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1911), “fetus”, in Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch (in German), page 246

• “fetus”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• “fetus”, in Charlton T. Lewis (1891) An Elementary Latin Dictionary, New York: Harper & Brothers
• fetus in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire illustré latin-français, Hachette

Borrowed from Latin foetus. Doublet of făt, which was inherited.

fetus m (plural fetuși)

1. fetus

Borrowed from Latin foetus.

• IPA^(key): /fěːtus/
• Hyphenation: fe‧tus

fétus m (Cyrillic spelling фе́тус)

1. fetus