Skeleton definitions and example sentences on Wordnik

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American Heritage Dictionary (9)

noun The internal structure composed of bone and cartilage that protects and supports the soft organs, tissues, and other parts of a vertebrate organism; endoskeleton.
noun The hard external supporting and protecting structure in many invertebrates, such as mollusks and crustaceans, and certain vertebrates, such as turtles; exoskeleton.
noun A supporting structure or framework, as of a building.

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Century Dictionary (26)

In anatomy, the dry bones of the body taken together; hence, in anatomy and zoology, some or any hard part, or the set of hard parts together, which form a support, scaffold, or framework of the body, sustaining, inclosing, or protecting soft parts or vital organs; connective tissue, especially when hard, as when fibrous, cuticular, corneous, cartilaginous, osseous, chitinous, calcareous, or silicious; an endoskeleton, exoskeleton, dermoskeleton, scleroskeleton, splanchnoskeleton, etc. (See these words.) More speciflcally— The test, shell, lorica, or set of spicules of any protozoan, as an infusorian, radiolarian, foraminifer, or other animalcule, exhibiting the utmost diversity of form, structure, and substance. See cuts under Foraminifera, Infusoria, and Radiolaria. In sponges, the whole sponge except the animalcules which fabricate it. (See cut under Porifera.) A bath-sponge, for example, is only the skeleton, from which the animals have been decomposed and displaced. This skeleton presents itself in three principal textures, tke fibrous, chalky, and glassy. In a few cases it is gelatinous. (See Fibrospongiæ, Calcispongiæ, Silicispongiæ, Myxospongiæ.) A nearly constant and very characteristic feature of sponge-skeletons is the presence of calcareous or silicious spicules. (See spicule.) Spicules in excess of fibrous tissue, and especially when consolidated in a kind of network, form the glass-sponges, some forms of which are very beautiful. (See cut under Euplectella.) Certain minute scleres of some sponges are flesh-spicules, and belong to the individual sponge-animalcules rather than to the general sponge-tissue. (Compare microsclere with megasclere.) The special or general hard parts of echinoderms, as the shell of a sea-urchin with its spines and oral armature; the spicules or scleres in the integument of a holothurian; the rigid parts of starfishes, crinoids, and the like. These skeletons are for the most part exoskeletons. See cuts under Clypeastridæ, Echinometra, Echinus, and sea-star. The chitinized or calcified integument or crust of arthropods, as insects or crustaceans, as the shell of a crab, etc. The shell, or valves of the shell, of a mollusk or molluscoid, as an oyster-shell or snail-shell. The hard parts, when any, as rings, scales, etc., of worms and worm-like animals. See cut under Polynoë. In Vertebrata: (1) The internal framework of the body, usually osseous or bony in the adult for the most part, sometimes cartilaginous or gristly; the endoskeleton: the skeleton of ordinary language. In a large series of fishes the whole skeleton is cartilaginous. In most vertebrates, however, the cartilage forming the skeleton of the embryo or fetus is mainly converted into bone by the process of ossification, or deposition of bone-earth, some parts, especially of the ribs, remaining as a rule cartilaginous. The vertebrate endoskeleton consists of axial parts, the axial skeleton, in a series of consecutive segments, the vertebræ, with their immediate offshoots, as ribs, and at the head end a skull or cranium (except in the Acrania or lowest fishes); and of appendages, the appendicular skeleton, represented by the one or two (never more) pairs of limbs, if any, including the pectoral and pelvic arch, or shoulder- and hip-girdle, by means of which the limbs are attached to the axis or trunk. Various other ossifications may be and usually are developed in tendinous or ligamentous tissue, or in viscera, and constitute the scleroskeleton or splanchnoskeleton. Teeth are certainly skeletal parts, though not usually counted with the bones of the skeleton; they are horny, not osseous or dentinal, in some animals. The human skeleton consists of about 200 bones, without counting the teeth—the enumeration varying somewhat according as the scleroskeletal sesamoid bones are or are not included. See sesamoid. (2) The external covering of the body; the cuticle or epidermis; the dermoskeleton or exoskeleton, including all the nonvascular, non-nervous cuticular or epidermal structures, as horns, hoofs, claws, nails, hairs, feathers, scales, etc. In man the exoskeleton is very slight, consisting only of cuticle, nails, and hair; but In many vertebrates it is highly developed and may be bony, as in the shells of armadillos and of turtles, the plates, shields, or bucklers of various reptiles and fishes, etc. See also cuts under archipterygium, carapace, Catarrhina, elasmosaur, Elephantinæ, endoskeleton, epipleura, Equidæ, fish, Ichthyornis, Ichthyosauria, Ichthyosaurus, Mastodontinæ, Mylodon, ox, Plesiosaurus, pterodactyl, and Pteropodidæ; also cuts under skull, and others there named. A skeleton, ferocious, tall, and gaunt; Whose loose teeth in their naked sockets shook, And grinn'd terrific a Sardonian look. Hart, Vision of Death. The bare-grinning skeleton of death! Tennyson, Merlin and Vivien.
The supporting framework of anything; the principal parts that support the rest, but without the appendages. The great structure itself, and its great integrals, the heavenly and elementary bodies, are framed in such a position and situation, the great skeleton of the world. Sir M. Hale.
An outline or rough draft of any kind; specifically, the outline of a literary performance: as, the skeleton of a sermon. The schemes of any of the arts or sciences may be analyzed in a sort of skeleton, and represented upon tables, with the various dependencies of their several parts. Watts.

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That 'dripping dew' from the skeleton is the only living word in the book!—which really amused me notwithstanding, from the intense absurdity of the whole composition ... descriptions ... sentiments and morals. — The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, Vol. 1 1845-1846
No use to compete directly with them, even if the skeleton were there. — The Source of Magic
We know that because the skeleton was adorned with necklaces and many, many bracelets made up of thousands of shell beads. — Magyar Venus
That this object could have been carved with the crude tools we have found in the same stratum as the skeleton is a wonder. — Magyar Venus
The diaries made it clear what that reply had been: the skeleton was a gypsy, dead for only two hundred years. — Magyar Venus

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