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Glite Dictionary
cuttlebone

cuttlebone

1 8.4
A hard, light shell inside a cuttlefish that birds peck for calcium
  • noun
  • /ˈkʌtəlˌboʊn/
  • Specialized
: hueso de sepia

Examples

  • Now, you play your little cards right and instead of a piece of cuttlebone... ...Uncle Emory will get you a piece of Dr. Kettlebaum.

    The Bad Seed (1956)

  • He spent the morning chewing on his cuttlebone and watching Bill go about his duties.

    Fiction book (1998)

  • Pet birds often enjoy chewing on a cuttlebone to help keep their beaks healthy.

  • You can buy a cuttlebone at the pet store as a calcium supplement for your birds.

  • I use a cuttlebone in my jewelry making as a mold for casting designs.

Surface Forms

cuttlebone singular
cuttlebones plural

Morphology

cuttlebone = cuttle + bone (transparent) = cuttle + bone

The word is a direct compound of 'cuttle' + 'bone', meaning the internal shell of a cuttlefish, which is directly inferable from its parts.

Etymology

The word cuttlebone comes from the sea animal cuttlefish and the word bone, because the hard, white shell inside a cuttlefish looked like a little 'bone'. That's why cuttlebone is the name for the hard inner shell people give to pet birds for calcium and use as a mold.