exuviae
noun
exuviae is a noun meaning “The coverings of an animal that have been shed or cast off, particularly the molted exoskeletons of arthropods” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). It is spelled E-X-U-V-I-A-E, and it appears about once in every 91 million words in written English (wordfreq, 2021 data).
What does exuviae mean?
noun
- 1
The coverings of an animal that have been shed or cast off, particularly the molted exoskeletons of arthropods.
- 2
Among the Ancient Romans, weaponry and equipment stripped from the person of a foe; booty.
- 3
plural of exuvia
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How do you pronounce exuviae?
- US
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: LL-Q1860_(eng)-Naomi_Persephone_Amethyst_(NaomiAmethyst)-exuviae.wav, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
How common is exuviae?
Exuviae appears about once in every 91 million words in written English, the 305,310th most frequent word form in the list.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
Where does exuviae come from?
Learned borrowing from Latin exuviae, from exuō (“cast off, undress”).
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).