chiton
Americannoun
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Also called sea cradle. a mollusk of the class Amphineura, having a mantle covered with calcareous plates, found adhering to rocks.
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a gown or tunic, with or without sleeves, worn in ancient Greece.
noun
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(in ancient Greece and Rome) a loose woollen tunic worn knee length by men and full length by women
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Also called: coat-of-mail shell. any small primitive marine mollusc of the genus Chiton and related genera, having an elongated body covered with eight overlapping shell plates: class Amphineura
Etymology
Origin of chiton
First recorded in 1810–20; from Greek chitṓn “tunic,” from Semitic (compare Hebrew kuttōneth “tunic”); ultimately from Sumerian
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
To get started, the team began constructing a chiton family tree using DNA from specimens preserved in co-author Doug Eernisse's global chiton collection, which now resides at the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History.
From Science Daily • Mar. 4, 2024
I found a cantaloupe-color, fist-size chiton that a gull had snacked on.
From Seattle Times • Mar. 29, 2018
A professor held the tongue plate of a chiton, a type of mollusk, and dragged it around with a bar magnet.
From Science Magazine • Jun. 23, 2016
The photo shows a chiton, which has an oval body with plate-like armor divided into segments.
From Textbooks • Jan. 1, 2015
On the throne now sat Notus—a bronze-skinned old man in a fiery Greek chiton, his head crowned with a wreath of withered, smoking barley.
From "The House of Hades" by Rick Riordan
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
