How to Use gonad in a Sentence

gonad

noun
  • The spiders’ gonads are in their legs — and so are their guts.
    — James Gorman, New York Times, 28 May 2018
  • Last week, one of them took a field goal to the gonads and barely flinched.
    — Chris Chavez, SI.com, 17 Sep. 2017
  • The one positive is that purple urchins have fleshy gonads known to sushi lovers as uni.
    — Peter Fimrite, SFChronicle.com, 22 Oct. 2019
  • After the spring, their male gonads age and drop off in a single molt and an ovary develops.
    — Emily Toomey, Smithsonian, 28 June 2019
  • Checking the gonads also helped confirm that the frogs were adults, and thus fully grown.
    — Will Sullivan, Smithsonian Magazine, 28 Feb. 2024
  • Pearlfish go inside the sea cucumbers’ butt and eat their gonads.
    — Rachel Becker, The Verge, 31 Mar. 2018
  • The formation of the stolon itself begins when the gonads near the worm’s butt mature.
    — Laura Baisas, Popular Science, 22 Nov. 2023
  • In the past, researchers cut open juvenile turtles to inspect their gonads.
    — Ben Guarino, Washington Post, 8 Jan. 2018
  • Those eyes are enlarged for a reason, as the gonad will often need to navigate in murky waters.
    — Elizabeth Rayne, Ars Technica, 8 Dec. 2023
  • It can be found in the gonads, skin, liver and/or intestines of fish in the Tetraodontiformes group.
    — David Faris, Newsweek, 27 Dec. 2024
  • Studies of the samples’ guts, gonads and eggs help determine how much the fish eat and reproduce.
    — Phil Diehl, San Diego Union-Tribune, 23 Mar. 2024
  • Adult men can choose to freeze their sperm before starting treatments that have the potential to damage their gonads.
    — National Geographic, 21 Mar. 2019
  • That thing sticking out between the legs in the photo above is the beak; immature planthoppers don’t have gonads yet.
    — Gwen Pearson, WIRED, 9 June 2014
  • The birds might also feed selectively on certain parts of jellies, like their gonads, which are rich in fats and proteins.
    — Steph Yin, New York Times, 29 Sep. 2017
  • Seventy days later, Dykman dissected the pink snail and found the worms alive and well in the snail’s gonad.
    — Sabrina Imbler, The Atlantic, 16 Feb. 2021
  • At age 16, Hann had surgery to remove her gonads, the tissue that becomes ovaries or testicles.
    — Asher Fogle, Good Housekeeping, 21 Oct. 2016
  • But as seasons change, warming water may induce oysters to spawn, releasing the contents of their gonads.
    — Joanna Klein, New York Times, 5 May 2017
  • The genes are not typically expressed as much in the middle of the body, except for when the gonads are developing.
    — Laura Baisas, Popular Science, 22 Nov. 2023
  • The worm has organs called gonad primordia on the underside of its posterior end.
    — Elizabeth Rayne, Ars Technica, 8 Dec. 2023
  • And most purple urchins aren’t marketable because their only edible parts, their gonads, are considered too small.
    — Maurice Roper, National Geographic, 30 Apr. 2020
  • An oyster’s gonad — its largest organ — makes up 30 to 40 percent of its body mass when fully developed.
    — Joanna Klein, New York Times, 5 May 2017
  • The signal is read by cells that go on to form the animal's gonads, which go on to produce hormones that direct the turtle's development.
    — John Timmer, Ars Technica, 17 Apr. 2020
  • What was even more distressing was the fact that female sharks were found to have higher concentrations of microplastics in their gonads compared to males.
    — Melissa Cristina Márquez, Forbes.com, 1 May 2025
  • On the other hand, the uni shooter (a gonad bathed in yuzu), sourced from other waters, was fine though not particularly memorable.
    — Mike Sula, Chicago Reader, 3 May 2018
  • The body and brain swap information via the chemicals released by endocrine organs like the thyroid and gonads, as well as parts of the immune system.
    — Joe Pappalardo, Popular Mechanics, 23 Sep. 2019
  • The chromosomes one has do not always predict one’s gonads or one’s genitals or even all the elements of one’s reproductive tract.
    — Agustín Fuentes, Scientific American, 25 Feb. 2025
  • If your level is low enough to warrant more aggressive treatment, your doctor can prescribe a drug that causes your pituitary to tell your gonads to make more testosterone.
    — Kevin Dupzyk, Men's Health, 24 Feb. 2023
  • Various hypotheses have been proposed, including the idea that dangling gonads are a way to signal virility and good health, but none are satisfactory.
    — New York Times, 29 June 2018
  • In addition to minor side effects that many users joke about—such as short-term memory loss—recent studies have linked marijuana to adverse health outcomes involving the lungs, heart, brain and gonads.
    — Jesse Greenspan, Scientific American, 1 Mar. 2024
  • Early during an embryo’s development, the germ cells — which are basically the cellular grandparents or great grandparents of sperm — travel to the nascent gonads.
    — Rachel Becker, The Verge, 26 Apr. 2018

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