cartilage

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. n. A tough, elastic, fibrous connective tissue found in various parts of the body, such as the joints, outer ear, and larynx. A major constituent of the embryonic and young vertebrate skeleton, it is converted largely to bone with maturation.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. n. A non-vascular animal tissue belonging to the connective-tissue group; gristle. Typical hyaline cartilage is a translucent substance, of firm elastic consistence, constructed of roundish cells embedded in a nearly homogeneous intercellular substance. Fibrocartilage differs in that the intercellular substance becomes fibrillated; it thus approaches ordinary connective tissue. Reticular, yellow, or elastic cartilage, as that constituting in man the epiglottis, the cornicula laryngis, the Eustachian tube, and gristly parts of the outer ear, contains interlacing elastic fibers in considerable quantity. In the two latter forms the homogeneous substance remains unchanged in the immediate vicinity of the cells, forming their hyaline capsules. Chondrin, a substance resembling gelatin, may lie extracted from cartilage by boiling. Cartilage usually persists in parts of the skeleton of adult vertebrates, as on the articular ends of bones, in the thorax, and in various passages which require to be kept open, as the windpipe, nostrils, and ears.

Wiktionary

1. n. A type of dense, non-vascular connective tissue, usually found at the end of joints, the rib cage, the ear, the nose, in the throat and between intervertebral disks.

GNU Webster's 1913

1. n. A translucent, elastic tissue; gristle.

WordNet 3.0

1. n. tough elastic tissue; mostly converted to bone in adults