How to Use mouthpart in a Sentence

mouthpart

noun
  • Twisting or jerking can cause the mouthparts to break off and remain in the skin.
    — Lisa Haney, Fox News, 7 July 2017
  • Now the fate of these trees—and our ability to defend them—rests in the mouthparts of a tiny gray moth.
    — Sam Schipani, Smithsonian, 10 Aug. 2017
  • Perhaps most weirdly, though, the feeding mouthparts remain down at the base of the neck.
    — Matt Simon, WIRED, 19 Dec. 2014
  • The adult female beetle lays her eggs in the far end of the twig, then uses her very sharp mouthparts to score the small branch around and around.
    — Neil Sperry, star-telegram, 20 Oct. 2017
  • When the material gets wet, however, their needle-like mouthparts slip right through.
    — Jason Daley, Smithsonian, 20 Aug. 2019
  • Along with anal drumming and scraping, the caterpillars vibrate via their mouthparts, either by drumming or scraping them from side to side on the leaf.
    — Mary Bates, National Geographic, 5 Apr. 2016
  • As Gabbatiss reports, instead of the usual ant mouthparts, Vladi has two large mandibular blades.
    — Jason Daley, Smithsonian, 13 Sep. 2017
  • Their mouthparts bruise then suck sap from the foliage of flowering plants, trees, evergreens, roses and shrubs, vegetables and houseplants.
    — Betty Cahill, The Denver Post, 24 June 2019
  • Because moths had already developed strawlike mouthparts, one group was able to exploit the novel food source, and evolved into butterflies.
    — Sarah Todd, Quartz at Work, 23 Oct. 2019
  • Scales Adult females look like hard or soft bumps on stems, leaves, or fruit; males are minute flying insects and larvae are tiny, soft, crawling insects with threadlike mouthparts.
    — The Editors, Good Housekeeping, 10 July 2018
  • Their mouthparts bruise then suck sap from foliage including flowering plants, trees, evergreens, roses and shrubs, vegetables and house plants.
    — Betty Cahill, The Denver Post, 16 June 2017
  • Scales Adult females look like hard or soft bumps on stems, leaves, or fruit, males are minute flying insects, and larvae are tiny, soft, crawling insects with threadlike mouthparts.
    — The Editors, Good Housekeeping, 10 July 2018
  • Known as an assassin bug, Sycanus uses its mouthpart to stab its insect prey, including the fire caterpillar, one of the most important pests of oil palm trees.
    — Dyna Rochmyaningsih, Science | AAAS, 11 July 2019
  • But the sensation is uniquely tactile, not at all unpleasant, as thousands of soft, plump grubs, each the size of a grain of rice, wriggle against your skin, tiny mouthparts gently poking your flesh.
    — Christopher Ingraham, Washington Post, 3 July 2019
  • The different resulting proteins would each have their own effect on what parts of the genetic code are turned on or off—leading to a male with huge mouthparts and a female without, for instance.
    — Smithsonian, 22 Mar. 2017
  • Once the plant surface is covered, insects have a really difficult time inserting either their mouthparts or ovipositors into the plants to do damage.
    — Sally McCabe, Philly.com, 16 June 2017
  • Researchers studied the shrimps’ key anatomical features, like the legs, mouthparts and shells, according to a statement by ZooKeys publisher Pensoft.
    — Brigit Katz, Smithsonian, 13 June 2018
  • The insect had a curved body and head for reaching inside flowers to feed, and its mouthparts include leglike appendages for collecting and transporting pollen similar to those of modern beetle pollinators.
    — Stephenie Livingston, Science | AAAS, 11 Nov. 2019
  • Looking at the shape of their mouthparts, the team predicted that the nematodes had different lifestyles; some were adapted for grazing on microbes, some were designed for predation and others were set up for parasitizing a host animal.
    — Jason Daley, Smithsonian, 1 Oct. 2019
  • Lots of flies pose a mild nuisance — like the fruit fly on the left — but the knife-like mouthparts of horse flies make their bites especially painful, according to the University of Kentucky College of Agriculture.
    — Caroline Picard, Good Housekeeping, 3 Aug. 2018

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'mouthpart.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

Last Updated: