Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. The calcareous internal shell of a cuttlefish, used as a dietary supplement for cage birds or ground into powder for use as a polishing agent.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. The internal plate of Sepia officinalis, consisting of a friable calcareous substance, formerly much used in medicine as an absorbent, but now chiefly for polishing wood, paint, varnish, etc., and for pounce and tooth-powder. A cuttlebone is often hung in the cage of canaries, its slightly saline taste being relished by the birds and acting as a gentle stimulus to their appetite, and its substance affording lime for the shells of their eggs. Also called
sepiost . See cut underDibranchiata .
Wiktionary
Etymologies
- Middle English cotilbone : codel, cotil, cuttlefish; see cuttlefish + bone, bone; see bone. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“Jist fur yu, ai will du the ‘happee parrut danse’ yu rite-id fur me: *bob hed, pek cuttlebone, kik birdie fut in ayre, shaik tailfedders, jazz talons*”
We wuz jus makin shur - Lolcats 'n' Funny Pictures of Cats - I Can Has Cheezburger?
“And fill the fabled cuttlebone, to better buoy myself, and dunk all foes in ink, and flee alone.”
“July 25th, 2007 at 8: 26 pm they are beautiful, i sat on one when it was on show at droog design in amsterdam. very stable, very handy. and very expensive. also, due to the thing being built up in layers during the production process the finished product looks a bit like cuttlebone; very organic.”
“Fawkes the phoenix was gnawing a bit of cuttlebone.”
“I bought Bijou 3 new toys, a cuttlebone and a treat stick today.”
“And then she felt a tightening against her breast, then pain, and looked down and saw there a skull, one wrinkled eye staring up at her out of its gaping socket, and a long, pointed thing like a cuttlebone thrusting out of its round, toothless orifice into her skin.”
Simon & Schuster: Lilith’s Dream: A Tale of the Vampire Life
““Your package of mixed birdseed and your cuttlebone.””
“Jake attached the cuttlebone, tied a bell to the perch, and closed the cage door.”
“At least the skin sloughing stage (with resultant release of an intact cuttlebone) appears prevalent at this site as boat-based observers have witnessed clean intact cuttlebones floating to the surface on numerous occasions in the proximity of pods of foraging dolphins”
“The key components of this prey-handling sequence are the beating of the corpse mid-water (in order to release the ink) and the scraping of the cuttlefish's dorsal body surface along the sand (in order to release the cuttlebone).”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘cuttlebone’.
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molluscs
very comprehensive list
of molluscs,who does not like
calamari? hmm yum
molluscigerous
100,000 species just in molluscsabalone, ammonite, argonaut, ataata, belon, bivalve, blackhead, bluepoint, brachiopod, buckie, byssal, byssus and 271 more...
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♥
ambrosia, inamorata, gossamer, lily-white, hummingbird, roucoulement, poppy, daisy, calypso, lunula, lamb, dove and 1526 more...
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Mollusks
"Snaily, clammy, squidy" has evolved into a vehicle for linking to mollusk quotations, so I've started this list for vernacular names of mollusks.
clam, snail, slug, squid, octopus, nautilus, conch, chank, whelk, mussel, oyster, scallop and 221 more...
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A few of my favorite definitions from...
I'm especially fond of ones written by Charles Sanders Peirce.
theodolite, illusion, buckie, frank, abstract-concrete, semidiagrammatic, object-object, vortex-filament, dod, parrock, cobler, weather-box and 354 more...
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harry p
travesty, twilit, amort, fussy, sentinel, balustrade, lumbago, trice, gable, unwonted, impunity, perfunctory and 104 more...
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compound words
My favourites.
birdbath, gallowglass, lamplight, chokecherry, lightbox, riptide, softshoe, snowshed, bluebird, matchbox, sugarcane, nightcap and 64 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for cuttlebone.
ruzuzu "The internal plate of Sepia officinalis, consisting of a friable calcareous substance, formerly much used in medicine as an absorbent, but now chiefly for polishing wood, paint, varnish, etc., and for pounce and tooth-powder. A cuttlebone is often hung in the cage of canaries, its slightly saline taste being relished by the birds and acting as a gentle stimulus to their appetite, and its substance affording lime for the shells of their eggs."
--from the Century Dictionary Dec 23, 2010
mollusque The internal shell of a cuttlefish. Dec 4, 2007