Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun The shedding of an outer integument or layer of skin, as by insects, crustaceans, and snakes; molting.
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun The act of putting off, coming out of, or emerging; the act of shedding or casting an outer coat or integument, as in the case of serpents and certain insects, or the feathers of birds; the molt: opposed to endysis.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun (Biol.) The act of shedding, or casting off, an outer cuticular layer, as in the case of serpents, lobsters, etc.; a coming out; ; exuviation.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun The
shedding of an outer layer ofskin in snakes,crustaceans andinsects ;moulting
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun periodic shedding of the cuticle in arthropods or the outer skin in reptiles
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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Spiders grow by shedding their old exoskeleton and replacing it with a larger, less constraining hide, a process known as ecdysis.
The Killing Kind John Connolly 2002
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It's from "ecdysis," a word for the process of shedding one's own skin, snake-style.
NPR Topics: News 2011
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It's from "ecdysis," a word for the process of shedding one's own skin, snake-style.
NPR Topics: News 2011
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It's from "ecdysis," a word for the process of shedding one's own skin, snake-style.
NPR Topics: News 2011
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It might be a good idea to relate strip-teasing in some way to the...zoological phenomenon of molting,...which is ecdysis.
Archive 2007-11-01 Burlesque Daily 2007
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It might be a good idea to relate strip-teasing in some way to the...zoological phenomenon of molting,...which is ecdysis.
Georgia Sothern, H.L.Mencken, Gypsy Rose Lee, and Ecdysiasm Burlesque Daily 2007
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Death is caused by incomplete ecdysis and cuticle malformation.
Chapter 6 1994
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It inhibits ecdysis and ultimately, apolysis, the first stage in the moulting process in which separation of the old cuticle from the underlying epidermal cells takes place.
Chapter 7 1994
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During pre-adult life, the exoskeleton is therefore renewed a number of times by the process of moulting or ecdysis.
Chapter 6 1994
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A less common word for the process is ecdysis (ek'dih-sis; "get out" G).
The Human Brain Asimov, Isaac 1963
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January 11, 2008