Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • adjective Of, relating to, or consisting of cartilage.
  • adjective Having a skeleton consisting mainly of cartilage.
  • adjective Having the texture of cartilage; firm and tough, yet flexible.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • Gristly; consisting of cartilage; being in the state or form of cartilage.
  • In ichthyology, having a gristly skeleton; chondropterygian: as, a cartilaginous fish.
  • Like or likened to cartilage.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • adjective Of or pertaining to cartilage; gristly; firm and tough like cartilage.
  • adjective (Zoöl.) Having the skeleton in the state of cartilage, the bones containing little or no calcareous matter; said of certain fishes, as the sturgeon and the sharks.

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

  • adjective Comprising of soft cartilage rather than bones.
  • adjective Related to or resembling cartilage
  • adjective mycology Having a tough or fibrous texture, usually in reference to a mushroom stipe

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • adjective difficult to chew
  • adjective of or relating to cartilage

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Latin cartilaginosus: compare French cartilagineux.

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Examples

  • In the present creation fishes are either osseous or cartilaginous, that is, with bony skeletons, or with a framework of elastic, semi-transparent animal matter, like the shark; and the ichthyolites of the Old Red Sandstone unite these characteristics, resembling in some respects the osseous and in others the cartilaginous tribes.

    The World's Greatest Books — Volume 15 — Science Various 1909

  • So-called cartilaginous fish, such as sharks and rays, with their gristly, rubbery flesh, are increasingly under threat from fishermen around the …

    euronews 2009

  • So-called cartilaginous fish, such as sharks and rays, with their gristly, rubbery flesh, are increasingly under threat from fishermen around the …

    euronews 2009

  • So-called cartilaginous fish, such as sharks and rays, with their gristly, rubbery flesh, are increasingly under threat from fishermen around the world.

    euronews 2009

  • Sharks and their relatives, the skates, rays and chimaeras, are cartilaginous fish (they contain no bones).

    Dr. Reese Halter: Protecting Great White Sharks Dr. Reese Halter 2010

  • Sharks and their relatives, the skates, rays and chimaeras, are cartilaginous fish (they contain no bones).

    Dr. Reese Halter: Protecting Great White Sharks Dr. Reese Halter 2010

  • Jack Musick, professor emeritus at the Virginia Institute of Marine Science, helped oversee a global study that suggests roughly 33 percent of cartilaginous fishes are threatened.

    Global extinction crisis looms, new study says Juliet Eilperin 2010

  • But in a study of 25,000 vertebrates, 41% of amphibians are threatened, 25% of mammals, 22% of reptiles, 13% of birds, 33% of cartilaginous fish such as sharks, and 15% of bony fish such as southern bluefin tuna.

    A War Against Extinction Gautam Naik 2010

  • Jack Musick, professor emeritus at the Virginia Institute of Marine Science, helped oversee a global study that suggests roughly 33 percent of cartilaginous fishes are threatened.

    Global extinction crisis looms, new study says Juliet Eilperin 2010

  • Jack Musick, professor emeritus at the Virginia Institute of Marine Science, helped oversee a global study that suggests roughly 33 percent of cartilaginous fishes are threatened.

    Global extinction crisis looms, new study says Juliet Eilperin 2010

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