‖ Monœcia Bot.
(mɒˈniːʃɪə)
[mod.L. (Linnæus 1735), f. Gr. µόνο-ς mono- + οἶκ-ος house: cf. Diœcia.]
The twenty-first class in the Sexual System of Linnæus, comprising plants which have the stamens and pistils, or male and female organs, in separate flowers, but on the same plant.
| 1753 Chambers Cycl. Supp., Monœcia, in botany, a class of plants which have not the male and female parts,..in the same, but in different flowers; and those on the same root. 1785 Martyn Rousseau's Bot. ix. (1794) 95. 1862 Darwin in Life & Lett. (1887) III. 304 About one-third of the British genera of aquatic plants belong to the Linnean classes of Mono- and Diœcia. |
Hence moˈnœcian a. = monœcious; n. a monœcious plant or animal.
| 1828–32 Webster, Monecian [a. and n.]; and in mod. Dicts. |