chitin.

A tough natural polysaccharide forming much of arthropod exoskeletons and fungal cell walls.

Use it for

Words that belong together

• plates of chitin
• chitin armor

On the page

Layers of dark chitin overlapped along its back.

The cracked shell revealed a pale film beneath the chitin.

Usage notes

Primary category: horror. Forms: Uncountable substance noun; no ordinary plural. Legacy lexical fields mirror sense 1 only. Use numbered sense fields for all meanings.