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Webster 1913 Edition


Corpuscle

Cor′pus-cle

(-pŭs-s’l)
,
Noun.
[L.
corpusculum
, dim. of
corpus
.]
1.
A minute particle; an atom; a molecule.
2.
(Anat.)
A protoplasmic animal cell; esp., such as float free, like blood, lymph, and pus corpuscles; or such as are imbedded in an intercellular matrix, like connective tissue and cartilage corpuscles. See
Blood
.
Virchow showed that the
corpuscles
of bone are homologous with those of connective tissue.
Quain’s Anat.
Red blood corpuscles
(Physiol.)
,
in man, yellowish, biconcave, circular discs varying from
1/3500
to
1/3200
of an inch in diameter and about
1/12400
of an inch thick. They are composed of a colorless stroma filled in with semifluid hæmoglobin and other matters. In most mammals the red corpuscles are circular, but in the camels, birds, reptiles, and the lower vertebrates generally, they are oval, and sometimes more or less spherical in form. In Amphioxus, and most invertebrates, the blood corpuscles are all white or colorless.
White blood corpuscles
(Physiol.)
,
rounded, slightly flattened, nucleated cells, mainly protoplasmic in composition, and possessed of contractile power. In man, the average size is about
1/2500
of an inch, and they are present in blood in much smaller numbers than the red corpuscles.

Webster 1828 Edition


Corpuscle

CORPUSCLE

,
Noun.
[L., body.] A minute particle, or physical atom; corpuscles are the very small bodies which compose large bodies, not the elementary principles of matter, but such small particles simple or compound, as are not dissolved or dissipated by ordinary heat.
It will add much to our satisfaction, if those corpuscles can be discovered by microscopes.

Definition 2024


corpuscle

corpuscle

English

Noun

corpuscle (plural corpuscles)

  1. A minute particle; an atom; a molecule.
    • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
      It is the object of the mechanical atomistic philosophy to confound synthesis with synartesis, or rather with mere juxtaposition of corpuscles separated by invisible interspaces.
  2. A protoplasmic animal cell; especially, such as float free, like blood, lymph, and pus corpuscles; or such as are embedded in an intercellular matrix, like connective tissue and cartilage corpuscles.

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