What does excretion mean?
Word: Excretion
Part of Speech: Noun
Meaning: Excretion means the way a living thing gets rid of waste from its body, for example through urine and sweat; also the waste itself.
Synonyms: elimination, discharge
Antonyms: absorption, intake
How do you spell excretion?
Syllables: ex - cre - tion
Tricky part: The x and c sit side by side after the first e. The ending is tion even though it sounds like shun.
Watch out for: exkretion, excresion, exretion
Memory tip: Ex means out, and excretion takes waste out of the body: write the ex first, then the c of the cr sound.
Excretion in a sentence
Example 1: The kidneys and the skin both help in excretion.
Example 2: Plants carry out excretion too; some store waste in leaves that later fall off.
Example 3: Fish carry out excretion through their gills as well as their kidneys.
Fun Fact
Each human kidney holds roughly a million tiny filters called nephrons, which do much of the body's excretion by cleaning the blood and making urine.
Practise the CREST Way
Mingle-Mangle
Form a meaningful word from the jumbled letters:
rcxeetino
a) excretion
b) secretion
c) exception
d) exertion
Show answer
a) excretion. Swap the x for an s and you get secretion; exertion has no c and exception needs a p, so these letters can only be excretion.
Word Cookie
Find the misspelt word in the sentence:
Sweat glands in our skin play a small part in the excreation of extra salts and water from the body.
a) excreation
b) salts
c) glands
d) body
Show answer
a) excreation. Excrete has no a, so excretion has none either.
Spell-o-Spell
Choose the correctly spelt word:
a) resperation
b) excretion
c) circulaton
d) absorbtion
Show answer
b) excretion. Each of the others has slipped: respiration needs an i after the p, absorption a p, and circulation an i before on.
Multiple Choice Questions
1. In which school subject would you most often meet the word excretion?
a) biology
b) civics
c) geography
d) history
Show answer
a) biology
2. Which of these is a waste product that the body removes by excretion?
a) oxygen
b) red blood cells
c) urea
d) vitamin C
Show answer
c) urea
