gill
16
3.6
- noun
- /ɡɪl/
:
branquia
- Specializations in their skin, mouth, and gill chambers allow mudskippers to breathe both in water and in air.
- gill net
- gill arches
- gill ventilation
Which leads to the question, could people evolve gills?
- Which leads to the question, could people evolve gills?
- In Riftia, the tube worms plume acts like a gill.
- That's how they they became, they started to breathe instead of having gills.
- You've been over there snuggling with that fish and licking its sides and touching its gills and y'all been getting to know each other for weeks.
- They actually use the slime coating to make sure that they're the gills stays nice and damp.
- We can fly without wings, dive without gills.
Examples
-
Fortunately, these fish have gills and lungs.
-
The creature had the gills of a fish and the fingers and toes of a tetrapod.
Academic text (2006) -
It looks like a fish gill but it's too big.
-
The mother was all over him, trying to plug the gill holes under his jaw.
Fiction book (1997) -
And that way, the water flows down their gills and they keep breathing.
-
The pale fish rolled, its gill flap sucking air above the surface of the water.
Fiction book (1996) -
My mother worked for a fishmonger, cleaning up scales and blood and gills until her fingers went raw.
-
I finally caught a trout, too, a small one, its pale pink gills pumping.
Fiction book (1998) -
Scales sprang up from beneath his skin, and gills billowed open along his cheeks.
Fiction book (1994) -
The fish uses its gills to extract oxygen from the water while swimming.
Synonyms
A thin part like a small leaf that lets fish breathe in water
A comb-like gill inside some mollusks that takes oxygen from water
A part that sticks out from an animal and gets oxygen from water
A thin part like a leaf on young water insects that helps them breathe in water
Compounds
- Specialized
An opening on the side of a fish's head that lets water pass so the fish can breathe
- Archaic
A low plant like mint that spreads across the ground with round leaves and small purple flowers
- Specialized
A curved bone or cartilage in the throat of fish and some water amphibians that holds the gills
- Specialized
An arch of bone or flexible tissue at the side of a fish's throat that supports the gills
- Specialized
A slit in the throat of fish and other water animals that lets water pass for breathing
- Specialized
A thin part like a leaf on young water insects that helps them breathe in water
Surface Forms
Etymology
Gill for the breathing organ comes from an old word for thin, 'leaf-like' parts; gills are thin plates that take oxygen from water, so the name fits their shape and function.