sternite

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. n. The ventral shield or plate of each segment of the body of an insect or other arthropod.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. n. In Arthropoda, as an insect or a crustacean, one of the median ventral sclerites of the crust or body-wall; the median ventral piece of any segment, somite, or metamere, whether a distinct piece or only that undistinguished ventral part or region which lies between the insertions of any pair of legs or other appendages. The sternites are primitively and typically all alike, but may be variously modified in different regions of the body, or coalesced with one another or with other pieces of the exoskeleton, or suppressed. See cut under cephalothorax.
2. n. In entomology, specifically, the under or ventral sclerite of an abdominal segment.
3. n. One of the pieces of the sternum or breastbone of a vertebrate; a sterneber.

Wiktionary

1. n. The ventral plate of each segment of an arthropod

GNU Webster's 1913

1. n. (Zoöl.) The sternum of an arthropod somite.