Resembling or having the nature of cartilage, the flexible connective tissue found in ears and joints.
From cartilaginous (Latin cartilago, cartilage) + -oid (Greek -oides, resembling). The suffix -oid was added to create an adjective meaning 'resembling cartilage-like' in scientific and medical contexts.
Cartilaginoid is a word that shows how scientists love to describe things by what they look like—it's basically saying 'this thing is sort of cartilage-y without actually being cartilage,' which is super useful in medicine when describing unusual tissue growths or formations.
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