depressa

Depressa is a term that may appear in several unrelated contexts; as a standalone entry it has no single, widely accepted definition. The word derives from Latin depressus, meaning pressed down, and the feminine form depressa is used in various languages as an adjective.

In taxonomy, depressa is a common epithet in the scientific names of plants and animals. When used as a species epithet, depressa typically signals a depressed, flattened, or sunken feature of the organism, such as a shallow shell, a flattened leaf surface, or a depressed crest. The exact meaning depends on the genus and the descriptive intentions of the author; the epithet does not describe a single taxon or a single diagnostic trait across groups.

In language and literature, depressa may appear as a feminine adjective form built from the Latin root depress-, and in Romance languages it may function as an ordinary descriptive word meaning 'depressed' or 'pressed down' in context. It is not a self-contained term with a fixed, universal definition.

In medicine and psychology, depressa is not an established clinical term; mood disorders are described as depression or depressive episodes rather than by the noun form depressa.

Though occasionally encountered in historical or philological texts, depressa does not denote a specific theory, disease, or technology on its own.

Related terms include depression, depressed, and depress (disambiguation).