claspers
Britishplural noun
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a paired organ of male insects, used to clasp the female during copulation
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a paired organ of male sharks and related fish, used to assist the transfer of spermatozoa into the body of the female during copulation
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.
Its development aligns instead with the pelvic claspers, suggesting that the migrant tissue is now regulated by other networks.
From Science Daily • Oct. 16, 2025
Spotted ratfish also use pelvic claspers for mating, similar to many other cartilaginous fish.
From Science Daily • Oct. 16, 2025
“Finding claspers in Olenoides serratus doesn’t mean that all trilobites reproduced that way,” she says.
From Scientific American • Jun. 3, 2022
They use gripping appendages, called claspers, to hook themselves onto a female’s spines, giving males an inside track to fertilize the female’s eggs as soon as she releases them from a compartment in her head.
From New York Times • May 6, 2022
Penal claspers: in Proctytripidae. lateral fringed processes of the male genitalia.
From Explanation of Terms Used in Entomology by Smith, John. B.
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.
