a. [f. mod.L. ūniparus (whence F. unipare, It. and Sp. uniparo): see UNI- and -PAROUS.]
1. Bearing or producing one at a birth; characterized by this kind of parturition.
1646. Sir T. Browne, Pseud. Ep., VI. vi. 298. For animals multifidous … there are but two that are uniparous, that is, Men and Elephants.
1662. Petty, Treat. Taxes & Contrib., xii. 58. ’Tis also the second choice out of the young of multiparous Cattle taken in specie,… or else a Composition in Money for the Uniparous.
1744. Monro, Compar. Anat., 37. Those of the uniparous Kind have them placed between the posterior Extremities.
1787. Phil. Trans., LXXVII. 358. The females of the human species, though most commonly uniparous.
1839–47. Todd’s Cycl. Anat., III. 315. The oviducts are shorter … in the uniparous Kangaroo,… than in the multiparous Opossums.
1856. Grindon, Life, iv. (1875), 41. Rousseau ingeniously urges … that woman is a uniparous animal.
1859. Owen, Lect. Classif. Mammalia, 56. The mastodons, megatheria,… and diprotodons, are uniparous.
2. Bot. Of a cyme: Having only one axis or branch; developing a single axis at each branching.
1839. Lindley, Introd. Bot. (ed. 3), 160. [An] axis of uniparous, that is one-peduncled, cymes.
1878. M. T. Masters, Henfrey’s Bot., 318. The inflorescence is probably a uniparous scorpioid cyme.
1887. Bentley, Man. Bot. (ed. 5), 215. The terms helicoid and scorpioid are thus used by us indifferently to indicate the same form of unilateral, monochasial, or uniparous cyme.
