Word.ws English Dictionary

chelae

chelae is the plural of chela.

Meaning of chela

Noun (1)

chela (plural chelae)

  1. A pincer-like claw of a crustacean or arachnid.
    • It happeneth often, I confess, that a lobster hath the chely or great claw of one side longer than the other […]1646, Thomas Browne, chapter III, in Pseudodoxia Epidemica: […], London: […] T[homas] H[arper] for Edward Dod, […], →OCLC, 1st book, page 5

Noun (2)

chela (plural chelas or chele)

  1. A pupil or disciple, especially in Hinduism.
    • Nay, I had a disciple with me. He that was my friend at the Temple of the Tirthankers gave me a chela for this journey.1901, Rudyard Kipling, Kim

Questions about chelae

What is chelae the plural of?
Chelae is the plural of chela.

Words near chelae in the dictionary

  1. Chekoslovakian
  2. cheks
  3. Chel
  4. Chel Menar
  5. chela
  6. chelae
  7. chelah
  8. chelahs
  9. chelam
  10. chelams
  11. Chelan

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: chelae (page history and authors); chela (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “chelae.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/chelae. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.