How to Use growth ring in a Sentence

growth ring

noun
  • The new study used lasers to sample tiny slices of a mollusk's shell and count the growth rings.
    Doyle Rice, USA TODAY, 11 Mar. 2020
  • The researchers then used a microscope to count the growth rings on each slice of otolith.
    Sean Landsman, National Geographic, 2 Aug. 2019
  • Winter and summer are hard to tell apart, so most trees lack growth rings.
    Nell Zink, Harper's magazine, 28 Oct. 2019
  • Once the wood was smooth, each growth ring was analyzed in detail.
    Rivka Galchen, The New Yorker, 6 May 2022
  • The tight and even growth rings are vital to the instrument’s tone quality.
    Patrick Raycraft, courant.com, 11 July 2019
  • Trees in temperate climate zones form a growth ring each year, just under the bark.
    Aoife Daly, Discover Magazine, 15 Mar. 2022
  • Even then, the growth rings were too narrow to be examined effectively by eye.
    Anna Gibbs, Quanta Magazine, 20 Mar. 2023
  • Inundate an oak tree for a couple weeks and that year’s growth ring will show damage at the cellular level.
    Adam Rogers, WIRED, 4 Apr. 2018
  • Acreage targets are not arbitrary but are based on historic burn intervals recorded in the growth ring of old trees.
    Arkansas Online, 26 Nov. 2021
  • By measuring how much Carbon-14 was in each growth ring, the scientists could calculate its age.
    Jennifer Leman, Popular Mechanics, 6 Apr. 2020
  • The fossilized mollusk shell belonged to a group called rudist clams, which grew quickly and recorded their lives in daily growth rings visible in the shells.
    Ashley Strickland, CNN, 13 Mar. 2020
  • Details in the tusk material include growth rings and hints of animal health.
    Jeanne Timmons, Ars Technica, 3 May 2023
  • After cutting the tree (preferably in winter when the sap flow is down), section a 4- to 6-foot length and scrape off the bark, taking care not to cut through the outer growth ring, which would create a weak spot where the bow can break.
    Keith McCafferty, Field & Stream, 29 June 2023
  • Grissino-Mayer and colleagues determined conclusively that the last growth ring present on the double bass grew in 1761.
    Stephen E. Nash, Discover Magazine, 3 May 2017
  • Tree trunks have growth rings; each concentric circle represents one year.
    Robin George Andrews, Scientific American, 27 Sep. 2023
  • Researchers examined growth rings taken from inside the trunks of 34 healthy ginkgo trees in two Chinese provinces, Jiangsu and Hubei.
    Katie Hunt, CNN, 14 Jan. 2020
  • Baked on a spit-like rotisserie, Baumkuchen is a round German cake with golden circular lines resembling a tree's growth ring (see image at the top of this story).
    Maggie Hiufu Wong, CNN, 5 Dec. 2021
  • Teeth have growth rings, much like trees, that determine age as well as minerals gained from the individual's diet.
    Ashley Strickland, CNN, 15 July 2019
  • Thin lines within a bone — much like growth rings in a tree — can indicate the age of an animal by marking where the growth of the cortical bone slowed or stopped for annual dry seasons or winters.
    Anna Gibbs, Quanta Magazine, 20 Mar. 2023
  • She and her colleagues also examined growth rings, which resemble tree rings and form each year when bone growth briefly pauses for a couple months before firing up again.
    Kate Baggaley, Popular Science, 3 Jan. 2020
  • Researchers analyzed the dry and wet cycles that have swept across western North America over centuries by examining the ancient records inscribed in the growth rings of trees.
    Ian James, azcentral, 6 May 2020
  • Petrified wood is a familiar example of fossilization—pieces of tree trunks turn into super-hard rocks, but still retain growth rings and even cell structures of the once-living tree.
    Anna K. Behrensmeyer, Smithsonian, 8 June 2019
  • For example, researchers at the arboretum are investigating the Chicago region’s climate history by studying the wet and dry years recorded in the growth rings of old trees.
    Beth Botts, chicagotribune.com, 21 June 2019
  • The analysis provided accurate measurements of the width and number of daily growth rings as well as seasonal patterns.
    Doyle Rice, USA TODAY, 11 Mar. 2020
  • For example: The density of the cells that form a tree's annual growth ring varies based on the ambient temperature and humidity of the tree's environment.
    Gemma Tarlach, Discover Magazine, 14 Feb. 2020
  • Certain types including oak show cellular-level damage when swamped, and which is visible in the trees’ growth rings, providing an annual record of when the river overflowed.
    Stephanie Pappas, Scientific American, 10 Apr. 2018
  • Unlike trees such as redwoods and oaks, baobabs can’t simply be aged by counting their growth rings; as the trees grow, their rings fade or are erased, and their giant interior cavities make the remaining traces difficult to count.
    National Geographic, 11 June 2018
  • Examining the growth rings, Li Wang, a plant molecular biologist at Yangzhou University, and colleagues discovered that the ginkgoes’ growth didn’t slow down after hundreds of years—in fact, their growth rates sometimes sped up.
    Erin Malsbury, Science | AAAS, 13 Jan. 2020
  • The strain of rising average temperatures and dropping regular precipitation can be measured in the shrinking growth rings of century-old trees.
    The Arizona Republic, 22 Apr. 2023
  • Variations in thickness, density, and chemical composition of growth rings reveal climatic conditions year by year.
    Krista Stevens, Longreads, 19 Mar. 2020

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'growth ring.' 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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