How to Use cartilaginous in a Sentence

cartilaginous

adjective
  • Beneath their main tongue is a piece of cartilaginous flesh that's thought to aid grooming.
    — National Geographic, 19 Nov. 2019
  • But these massive cartilaginous critters are not the largest fish to ever glide through the ocean.
    — Julissa Treviño, Smithsonian, 4 June 2018
  • 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
  • Sharks possess a cartilaginous skeleton, which is lighter and more flexible than bone.
    — Scott Travers, Forbes, 7 Sep. 2024
  • Ordinarily, a frog that’s lost a leg will regrow a cartilaginous spike in its place.
    — Matthew Hutson, The New Yorker, 3 May 2021
  • All that protects us from aspirating is a thin, cartilaginous flap of tissue called the epiglottis.
    — Douglas Jacobs, Washington Post, 7 Mar. 2018
  • Perhaps there’s a ridge, bump, or cartilaginous bit with a yet-unknown acoustic purpose, hiding on a porpoise.
    — Lauren Leffer, Popular Science, 16 July 2025
  • 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
  • The commercial value of these cartilaginous appendages is so great that fishers won’t waste space in the bilges of vessels by keeping the entire fish.
    — Angela Posada-Swafford, Discover Magazine, 28 June 2024
  • Her sentences themselves have a cartilaginous magic.
    — Literary Hub, 10 Feb. 2026
  • White also described a new chimaera — a type of animal related to sharks and rays, which have cartilaginous rather than bony skeletons.
    — Hanna Wickes, Fort Worth Star-Telegram, 31 Mar. 2026
  • Our preliminary hypothesis is that the creatures were green or blue, with long cartilaginous beaks.
    — Naomi Fry, The New Yorker, 18 Sep. 2017
  • Whale sharks, which are cartilaginous, weigh about 11 tons, according to the World Wildlife Fund.
    — Orlando Mayorquin, USA TODAY, 21 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 largely cartilaginous, a body structure that often doesn’t survive fossilization.
    — Jeanne Timmons, Ars Technica, 6 July 2023
  • Demonstrating that cartilaginous jawed fish also have synovial joints opens up the questions of whether their–and our–common ancestor also had them.
    — Elizabeth Rayne, Ars Technica, 21 Mar. 2025
  • 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
  • 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 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
  • Another discovery was a new chimaera — a type of animal related to sharks and rays, which have cartilaginous rather than bony skeletons.
    — Hanna Wickes, Charlotte Observer, 31 Mar. 2026
  • 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
  • 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
  • Teeth are the only widely available record of prehistoric sharks, since the cartilaginous bodies of the predatory fish do not preserve easily.
    — Carlyn Kranking, Smithsonian Magazine, 17 Sep. 2024
  • Another discovery was a new chimaera — also known as a ghost shark or rat fish — a type of animal related to sharks and rays, which have cartilaginous rather than bony skeletons.
    — Hanna Wickes, Miami Herald, 31 Mar. 2026
  • Sharks have only a cartilaginous skeleton that quickly decays after death, only their hard teeth survive the long and arduous fossilization process.
    — David Bressan, Forbes.com, 26 May 2025
  • 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
  • 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
  • Over the next seven days, viewers will be served a monstrous helping of Great Whites, hammerheads, and many more cartilaginous carnivores.
    — Wesley Stenzel, EW.com, 7 July 2024
  • 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

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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