a. [f. as prec. + -OUS.]
1. Zool. Wingless; esp. belonging to the Aptera, a sub-order of Insects including lice and spring-tails.
1775. White, Selborne, lxv. (1865), 272. These apterous insects.
1786. Lightfoot, Brit. Shells, in Phil. Trans., LXXVI. 169. The body of the single specimen which had wings was … narrower than the apterous ones.
1880. Bastian, Brain, 61. Blind insects are all apterous.
2. Bot. Of seeds, leaf-stalks, etc.: Having no membranous expansions; opposed to alate.
1830. Lindley, Nat. Syst. Bot., 45. [The Mangosteen Tribe have] seeds … always apterous.
