CRABS

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does crabs mean? 

• CRABS (noun)
  The noun CRABS has 1 sense:

1. infestation of the pubic hair by crab lice

  Familiarity information: CRABS used as a noun is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• CRABS (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Infestation of the pubic hair by crab lice

Classified under:

Nouns denoting stable states of affairs

Synonyms:

crabs; pediculosis pubis

Hypernyms ("crabs" is a kind of...):

lousiness; pediculosis (infestation with lice (Pediculus humanus) resulting in severe itching)

 Context examples 

In patchy doses in the open ocean, Sargassum contributes to ocean health by providing habitat for turtles, crabs, fish, and birds and, like other plants, producing oxygen via photosynthesis.

(Satellites Find Biggest Seaweed Bloom in the World, NASA)

Some, including crayfishes, live in freshwater habitats; others (e.g., sand fleas, land crabs, and sow bugs) live in moist terrestrial environments.

(Crustacean, NCI Thesaurus)

Yes, he added, as her ladyship broke in with a voluble protest, many and many as good a man who has gone to the sharks or the land-crabs.

(Rodney Stone, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

The three types of lice that live on humans are head lice, body lice (also called clothes lice), and pubic lice ("crabs").

(Lice, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention)

The researchers suspected that mussels, by paving the marsh surface with their ribbed shells, attracted burrowing crabs that excavate underground water storage compartments.

(Biodiversity in salt marshes builds climate resilience, NSF)

He soon returned, greatly improved in appearance; but so rubicund, that I couldn't help thinking his face had this in common with the lobsters, crabs, and crawfish,—that it went into the hot water very black, and came out very red.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

Actually, there were crabs.

(Fairy Tales, by The Brothers Grimm)

The technology mixes chitosan —a natural polymer extracted from the shell of crustaceans such as shrimp, lobsters, and crabs— with quaternary ammonium salts, chemical compounds that have antimicrobial properties and are commonly used in controlled concentrations in food industries and as domestic sanitisers.

(Protective bio-shell could extend egg shelf life, SciDev.Net)

On Earth, worms and clams that live in the muddy sea beds require 1 mg per liter, bottom feeders such as crabs and oysters 3 mg per liter, and spawning migratory fish 6 mg per liter, all within 0.2 moles per cubic meter, 6.4 mg per liter.

(Simple animals could live in Martian brines, Wikinews)

Threatened social interest species include a number of stingless bees (known locally as uruçu, mandaçaia, and jandaíra), swamp ghost crabs, blue land crabs, a freshwater shrimp locally known as pitu, mangrove root crabs, catfish, yellowmouth groupers, jewfish, hammerhead sharks, among others.

(Over 300 animal species threatened in Bahia, Agência Brasil)