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air bladder

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noun
  1. a vesicle or sac containing air.
  2. Also called gas bladder, swim bladder. Ichthyology. a gas-filled sac located against the roof of the body cavity of most bony fishes, originally functioning only as a lung, now serving in many higher fishes to regulate hydrostatic pressure.
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Origin of air bladder

First recorded in 1725–35
Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2018

Related Words

float

Examples from the Web for air bladder

Historical Examples

  • I believe he is rising now from some management of the air-bladder.

    Jack at Sea

    George Manville Fenn

  • The air-bladder large and strong, and in some cases notched on the margin.

    The Ocean World:

    Louis Figuier

  • But the primal purpose of the air-bladder was not to serve as a float.

  • In the sharks, rays, and chimæras there is no trace of an air-bladder.

  • The elasticity of the air enables fishes to rise and sink in water, through the action of the air-bladder.

British Dictionary definitions for air bladder

air bladder

noun
  1. Also called: swim bladder ichthyol an air-filled sac, lying above the alimentary canal in bony fishes, that regulates buoyancy at different depths by a variation in the pressure of the air
  2. any air-filled sac, such as one of the bladders of seaweeds
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Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012
air bladder in Science

air bladder

  1. An air-filled sac in many fish that helps maintain buoyancy or, in some species, helps in respiration, sound production, or hearing. Also called swim bladder
  2. See float.
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The American Heritage® Science Dictionary Copyright © 2011. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.