nymphae
- 1Plural of nympha.
Just behind the beaks of the clam, the nymphae form two raised ridges where the ligament attaches.
In this species the nymphae are long and narrow, which helps collectors tell it from its relatives.
Note
Nympha keeps its Latin plural, -a becoming -ae just as in larva and alga. It can mean nymphs, as the plural of nymph does, and it also names parts of a body. Shell collectors use it for the paired ridges near a bivalve's beaks where the outer ligament is anchored; older anatomy used it, now archaically, for the labia minora.
- 2Plural of nymph. Rare and learned; the usual plural is nymphs.
Note
This is the learned Latin plural, a rarer alternative to the ordinary English nymphs. Choosing it lends a passage a classical or scientific air, whether the subject is the spirits of Greek and Roman myth or the young of dragonflies; in most writing nymphs is the natural choice. The same spelling is also the plural of the shell collector's nympha.
nymphae is a form of nymph
nymph, noun: In Greek and Roman mythology, any female nature spirit linked with a place or force such as water, forests, grottoes, or wind. Full entry
- Spelling
- nymph → nymphae: irregular plural (no -s)
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