How to Use cartilaginous in a Sentence

cartilaginous

adjective
  • Sharks are largely cartilaginous, a body structure that often doesn’t survive fossilization.
    Jeanne Timmons, Ars Technica, 6 July 2023
  • But these massive cartilaginous critters are not the largest fish to ever glide through the ocean.
    Julissa Treviño, Smithsonian, 4 June 2018
  • Beneath their main tongue is a piece of cartilaginous flesh that's thought to aid grooming.
    National Geographic, 19 Nov. 2019
  • Whale sharks, which are cartilaginous, weigh about 11 tons, according to the World Wildlife Fund.
    Orlando Mayorquin, USA TODAY, 21 Oct. 2022
  • Strips of black fungus trailed out of the meatballs, giving them a cartilaginous crunch.
    Soleil Ho, SFChronicle.com, 10 Dec. 2020
  • In lieu of scales, bony plates called scutes cover the sturgeon’s cartilaginous bodies.
    Julia Kramer, Bon Appetit, 6 Feb. 2017
  • In lieu of scales, bony plates called scutes cover the sturgeon’s cartilaginous bodies.
    Julia Kramer, Bon Appetit, 6 Feb. 2017
  • Ordinarily, a frog that’s lost a leg will regrow a cartilaginous spike in its place.
    Matthew Hutson, The New Yorker, 3 May 2021
  • And while fossilized shark skeletons are hard to come by due to their cartilaginous skeletons, their teeth and dermal denticles (scales) are a bit more common.
    Melissa Cristina Márquez, Forbes, 1 Sep. 2021
  • All that protects us from aspirating is a thin, cartilaginous flap of tissue called the epiglottis.
    Douglas Jacobs, Washington Post, 7 Mar. 2018
  • Many of these cartilaginous swimmers eat fish, crustaceans, mollusks, plankton, krill, marine mammals, and other sharks—in short, humans are not on the menu.
    Elaina Zachos, National Geographic, 27 June 2019
  • The presence of shark relatives at the site suggests that the split between cartilaginous and bony fish had already occurred by the early Silurian, Dr. Friedman said.
    Asher Elbein, New York Times, 28 Sep. 2022
  • The pasta’s quill-like form and perpendicular ridges are said to resemble the cartilaginous rings in a chicken’s trachea.
    AJC.com, 24 Feb. 2018
  • More than 90 percent of all fish are bony fish; the category excludes rays, sharks and other marine wildlife with cartilaginous skeletons.
    Sarah Kuta, Smithsonian Magazine, 19 Oct. 2022
  • That excess was absorbed into the ocean and taken up by everything in the food web—including cartilaginous whale shark skeletons.
    National Geographic, 6 Apr. 2020
  • Sharks are considered to be a long-bodied marine fish with a cartilaginous skeleton and a prominent dorsal fin.
    Cortney Moore, Fox News, 13 Aug. 2023
  • Enter the panda’s pseudo-thumb, which is also composed of an enlarged radial sesamoid and cartilaginous extension, and is controlled by the same three muscles as in the aye-aye.
    National Geographic, 21 Oct. 2019
  • The researchers used a megalodon vertebral column from Belgium, a tooth from the United States, and the chondrocranium – the cartilaginous equivalent of a skull – from a great white shark to build their 3D skeleton.
    Zoe Sottile, CNN, 20 Aug. 2022
  • Joining sharks and rays in the elasmobranch clan, sawfish are built over a cartilaginous frame that works in concert with a low profile and flat belly to allow efficient movement through whisper-thin depths.
    David A. Brown, Field & Stream, 13 Dec. 2019
  • The fish do not have bones but instead are cartilaginous, meaning their bodies are riddled with stiff armor-like plates and bone-like cartilage, Gizmodo reports.
    Elizabeth Gamillo, Smithsonian Magazine, 24 Feb. 2022
  • The cartilaginous ridges, troughs and protuberances of the outer ear also alter sound before it is transduced into nerve signals.
    The Economist, 16 Dec. 2020
  • Our preliminary hypothesis is that the creatures were green or blue, with long cartilaginous beaks.
    Naomi Fry, The New Yorker, 18 Sep. 2017
  • Also unlike mammals, the upper esophagus is not circled by cartilaginous rings, which explains how birds swallow whole, live fish with ease.
    Elsbeth Sites, Discover Magazine, 24 Feb. 2015
  • Those sandwiches, with their rib-sticking meatiness and gentle cartilaginous crunch, fed the Freedom Riders, fed blues musicians, and have been feeding this neighborhood ever since.
    Matt Goulding, The Atlantic, 19 June 2020
  • The answers include cartilaginous structures that supported gills and a possible ancestor to what became our lower jaw.
    John Timmer, Ars Technica, 7 July 2022
  • Amphiarthroses are cartilaginous joints, two or more bones held so tightly together that only limited movement can take place, such as spinal vertebrae.
    Scott Lafee, San Diego Union-Tribune, 27 June 2023
  • In the spaces between these near-angelic digital beings, in the spaces behind them, the unreality comes trickling in—through holes and portals and cartilaginous tubes of nothingness.
    James Parker, The Atlantic, 14 Oct. 2022
  • These creatures don't leave behind bones, but rather calcified fragments of their cartilaginous vertebrae and an occasional tooth.
    Lina Zeldovich, Smithsonian Magazine, 25 May 2021
  • Frogs that did not receive the progesterone treatment developed cartilaginous spikes at the amputation site, whereas ones that wore the hormone delivering bioreactor for one day regrew a paddle-shaped appendage.
    Roni Dengler, Discover Magazine, 6 Nov. 2018
  • These aquatic, semi-aquatic or terrestrial creatures are recognizable thanks to their bony, cartilaginous shells.
    Olivia Munson, USA TODAY, 17 July 2022

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'cartilaginous.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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