orchis

1. 1.

   any of various deciduous terrestrial orchids having fleshy tubers and flowers in erect terminal racemes

   Broaderorchid

   Narrowermale orchisbutterfly orchidshowy orchis

   Part ofgenus Orchis
2. 2.

   one of the two male reproductive glands that produce spermatozoa and secrete androgens

   “she kicked him in the balls and got away”

   Synonymstestistesticleballballockbollocknutegg

   Broadermale reproductive glandgonad

   Narrowercobblersundescended testis

   Part ofmale reproductive systemmale genitalia

   Partstesticular arterytesticular veinseminiferous tubuleepididymisrete testisvas deferens

Other forms of orchis

plural

orchises·

Forms marked · are formed by the regular rule rather than recorded in the source data. English keeps a few hundred irregulars and the rest follow the pattern, so the rule is right far more often than not — but it is a rule, and the mark says so.

Questions about orchis

What does orchis mean?

orchis means "any of various deciduous terrestrial orchids having fleshy tubers and flowers in erect terminal racemes". That is the primary sense; the word has 2 in total, listed in full on this page.

How many syllables are in orchis?

orchis has 2 syllables: or-chis. The stress falls on "or".

What is another word for orchis?

Close synonyms include testis, testicle, ball, ballock, bollock. Each sense on this page lists its own synonyms, because a word with several meanings rarely has one substitute that works for all of them.

Is orchis a common word?

orchis is banded "Rare" — specialist or archaic — most readers will not have met it. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.