retractile
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.
Once upon a time, many, many hundred years ago, the dog did use its claws; they were then retractile.
From The Wonders of the Jungle, Book Two by Ghosh, Sarath Kumar
The creature itself stands upon a retractile foot-stalk, and thrusts out above its battlements a large head, with four leaf-like expansions surrounded by cilia.
From Marvels of Pond-life A Year's Microscopic Recreations by Slack, Henry J.
The phenomenon is a purely physical synthetic reproduction of the phenomenon of coagulation, the cohesion figure being in fact a retractile clot.
From The Mechanism of Life by Leduc, Stéphane
The reader will remember that in the Vorticella previously described, the bells stood upon stalks that were very flexible, and retractile by means of a muscle running down their length.
From Marvels of Pond-life A Year's Microscopic Recreations by Slack, Henry J.
Herpestes, her-pes′tez, n. the typical genus of ichneumons or mongooses of the sub-family Herpestin�, viverroid carnivores, having straight toes, claws not retractile.
From Chambers's Twentieth Century Dictionary (part 2 of 4: E-M) by Various
