The Collaborative International Dictionary
Caducous \Ca*du"cous\, [L. caducus falling, inclined to fall, fr. cadere to fall. See Cadence.] (Bot. & Zo["o]l.) Dropping off or disappearing early, as the calyx of a poppy, or the gills of a tadpole.
Wiktionary
a. 1 (context biology English) Of a part of an organism, disappearing in the normal course of development. 2 (context botany English) Tending to fall early.
WordNet
adj. shed at an early stage of development; "most amphibians have caducous gills"; "the caducous calyx of a poppy" [syn: shed] [ant: persistent]
Usage examples of "caducous".
They are fleshy shrubs, with rounded, woody stems, and numerous succulent branches, composed in most of the species of separate joints or parts, which are much compressed, often elliptic or suborbicular, dotted over in spiral lines with small, fleshy, caducous leaves, in the axils of which are placed the areoles or tufts of barbed or hooked spines of two forms.
He had been analyzed himself, analyzed and passed upon as a granite-willed, ultrastable outsidertough enough to weather the basilisk gaze of a fixation, walk unscathed amidst the chimaerae of perversions, force dark Mother Medusa to close her eyes before the caducous of his art.