demosponge
demosponge noun: a sponge of the class Demospongiae, having skeletons made of spongin fibers.
Noun
demosponge (plural demosponges)
- A sponge of the class Demospongiae, having skeletons made of spongin fibers.
- We know that at least some living calcified demosponges grow extremely slowly (0.2 mm/year Willems and Hartman 1985) and, since individuals can grow up to 1 m in diameter, are also very old (up to 5000 years).1991, R. Wood, “Non-Spicular Biomineralization in Calcified Demosponges”, in Joachim Reitner, Helmut Keupp, editors, Fossil and Recent Sponges, Springer,, page 338
- Demosponges have siliceous spicules and a network of fibrous protein, spongir, that is similar to collagen. The demosponges are the source of natural household sponges, which are made by soaking dead sponges in shallow water until all the cellular material has decayed, leaving the spongin network...2011, Naomi E. Balaban, James E. Bobick, editors, The Handy Science Answer Book, 4th edition, Visible Ink Press, page 466
Forms of demosponge
| plural | demosponges |
|---|
Origin of demosponge
From Ancient Greek δῆμος (dêmos, “common people”) + sponge, a partial calque of translingual Demospongiae.
Questions about demosponge
- What does demosponge mean?
- Demosponge means a sponge of the class Demospongiae, having skeletons made of spongin fibers.
- What part of speech is demosponge?
- Demosponge is a noun.
- What is the plural of demosponge?
- The plural of demosponge is demosponges.
Words near demosponge in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: demosponge (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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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Wodencafe-demosponge.wav.
Cite this entry: “demosponge.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/demosponge. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.