Definitions

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun Plural form of chela.

Etymologies

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Examples

  • Perhaps it's not foam we see at the chelae, but the pathetic remains of an unlucky dwarf.

    It's Life, Jim, But Not As We Know It 2010

  • In a few days they moult and lose the stalked connection with their mother, but they remain attached to her swimming legs with their chelae for up to two weeks.

    Crustacea 2008

  • The front chelae are certainly hard enough, and curved.

    grouse Diary Entry grouse 2001

  • Its body closely resembled that of a Bengal tiger; in the center of its forehead was a single eye on a short antenna; from the shoulders, just anterior to the forelegs, grew two enormous chelae; and its jaws were terribly armed as those of the tharban.

    Escape on Venus Burroughs, Edgar Rice, 1875-1950 1963

  • I learned many a trick of roping from a cowboy friend of my motion picture days, and one of these I now put into use in an endeavor to entangle the crablike chelae Suddenly giving the rope sufficient slack, I threw a half hitch around the chela that gripped it, immediately following it with a second, whereupon the creature commenced to pull desperately away.

    Pirates of Venus Burroughs, Edgar Rice, 1875-1950 1962

  • I turned and ran, hoping that I could get out of the reach of those terrible chelae before the creature was stopped by the rope; and this I but barely managed to do.

    Pirates of Venus Burroughs, Edgar Rice, 1875-1950 1962

  • The result merely demonstrated the efficiency of that single eye and the quickness of the chelae.

    Pirates of Venus Burroughs, Edgar Rice, 1875-1950 1962

  • I snapped that rope as a ringmaster snaps a whip; but though the rope end travelled with great speed and the act must have been unexpected, the creature caught the rope in one of its chelae before it reached its face.

    Pirates of Venus Burroughs, Edgar Rice, 1875-1950 1962

  • For a time it eyed me with that single, terrifying eye that moved to and fro at the end of its antenna, and all the time its chelae were waving slowly, opening and closing.

    Pirates of Venus Burroughs, Edgar Rice, 1875-1950 1962

  • The incubus of legs and chelae and vital organs will be removed.

    The Chessmen of Mars 1922

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