Meanings
- uncountableThe development of an organism in an artificial environment outside the body in which it naturally grows.
If reproductive technology could offer some form of ectogenesis, would feminists regard it as a liberating reproductive option?
1992, Helen B. Holmes, Laura Martha Purdy, Feminist Perspectives in Medical Ethics, Indiana University Press, →ISBN, page 1812 more examples
Complete ectogenesis is already excluded. Partial ectogenesis is the continued development of an already generated human being in an artificial womb after transfer from a maternal womb.
2010, Christopher Kaczor, The Ethics of Abortion, Routledge, →ISBNEctogenesis is a genesis “outside” the maternal body. The “outside” can be artificial (machine), which I address in this chapter, or another bodily environment (man or animal), which I will address in the next chapter.
2012, Irina Aristarkhova, Hospitality of the Matrix, Columbia University Press, →ISBN, page 88
Origin
From ecto- (“outside-”) + -genesis. The modern biological sense was coined by British biologist J. B. S. Haldane in 1923 in the lecture that formed his 1924 book Daedalus; or, Science and the Future.
Full word history & related roots →Translations
Polish ektogeneza
- ektogenezaTranslations
Cite this entry
ectogenesis. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 2, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/ectogenesis
“ectogenesis.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/ectogenesis. Accessed November 2, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “ectogenesis,” accessed November 2, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/ectogenesis.
Source: ectogenesis on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.