digestive gland

noun

1. any gland having ducts that pour secretions into the digestive tract, as the salivary glands, liver, and pancreas.

Word History and Origins

Origin of digestive gland¹

First recorded in 1935–40

Example Sentences

Researchers generated three-dimensional images of miniature brain regions, digestive glands, a primitive circulatory system and even traces of the nerves supplying the larva’s simple legs and eyes.

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The parasite infects connective tissue and produces spores inside digestive glands, eventually killing the bivalves.

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But the presence of both a crop and digestive glands, Hopkins and colleagues write, means that the evolution of trilobite innards was more complex than previously supposed. 

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Do you eat the crab “mustard” or do you toss the pale-yellow digestive gland?

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Well technically, it’s the tomalley—a digestive gland that’s the intestine, liver, and pancreas.

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