Crossword clues for exuviae
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Exuviae \Ex*u"vi*[ae]\, n. pl. [L., fr. exuere to draw out or off, to pull off.]
(Zo["o]l) Cast skins, shells, or coverings of animals; any parts of animals which are shed or cast off, as the skins of snakes, the shells of lobsters, etc.
(Geol.) The fossil shells and other remains which animals have left in the strata of the earth.
Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
"cast-off skins, shells, or other coverings of animals," 1650s, Latin, literally "that which is stripped off," hence "slough, skin," also "clothing, equipment, arms, booty, spoils," from stem of exuere "to doff," from ex- "off" (see ex-) + PIE *eu- "to dress" (also in Latin induere "to dress," reduvia "fragment").
Wiktionary
n. 1 (plural of exuvia English) 2 (context plural only English) The coverings of an animal that have been shed or cast off, particularly the molted exoskeletons of arthropods. 3 (context plural only history English) Roman military term for weaponry and equipment stripped from the person of a foe; booty.
n. 1 (alternative form of exuviae English) 2 (en-irregular plural of: exuvia)
WordNet
n. cast-off skins or coverings of various organisms during ecdysis
Usage examples of "exuviae".
Oropa hundreds of feet deep, some one sinking a well or making a railway-cutting will unearth these chapels, and will believe them to have been houses, and to contain the exuviae of the living forms that tenanted them.
He sighed and went into the washing place, used the water brush to scour away the exuviae from his skin, pulling the folds taut and scrubbing the accumulations from the cracks and crannies of his being.
A distinct vision presented itself to me of Bill and his cart, from which dangled the sanguinary exuviae of defunct animals, while in front the said Bill sat enthroned, dirty-clad, and dirty-handed, with his pipe in his mouth.