MEANING
Made of, containing, or resembling chitin, the tough structural substance found in arthropod coverings and fungal cell walls.
Use it for
An insectlike covering replacing soft skin; armored organic plates; unnatural body-material combinationsMake armor biological rather than metallic, with plausible or explicitly fictional anatomy.
Words that belong together
- chitinous shell
- chitinous plates
- chitinous covering
On the page
Chitinous plates overlapped along the creature's forearms.
A chitinous covering had formed where the specimen once had soft tissue.
The probe clicked against the chitinous shell.
Nearby words
Related words
Word forms
- Base
- chitinous
Usage notes
Primary category: horror. Biological material adjective; not every hard shell is chitinous. In creature prose, establish the resemblance or fictional anatomy rather than assert an unsupported identification. Adjective; normally non-gradable; use the base form rather than mechanical -er/-est forms. Derived/related family (not inflections): chitin (base noun).
Practice this word in a sentenceYour margin notes
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