CORPUSCLE • FREE TRANSLATOR.ORG • Definition of Corpuscle

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noun

Corpuscle n.

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."

3.

(Physics) An electron. (archaic)

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 haemoglobin 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.

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Etymology of 'Corpuscle'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Corpuscle" Quotes from Famous Books

... (caryobasis) is formed of the enveloping membrane and a mesh-work of nuclear threads running across the interior, which is filled with the nuclear sap. In a knot of the network is contained the dark, stiff, opaque nuclear corpuscle or nucleolus. When the impregnation of the ovum sets in, the greater part of the germinal vesicle is dissolved in the cell; the nuclear membrane and mesh-work disappear; the nuclear sap is distributed in the protoplasm; a small portion of the nuclear ...

— The Evolution of Man, V.1. • Ernst Haeckel

... required, or two of nitrogen where only one was wanted,—and the face of the world might have been vastly different. Not only did much depend on their coming together, but upon the order of their coming; they must unite in just such an order. Insinuate an atom or corpuscle of hydrogen or carbon at the wrong point in the ranks, and the trick is a failure. Is there any chance that they will hit upon a combination of things and forces that will make a machine—a watch, a gun, or even a ...

— The Breath of Life • John Burroughs

... into the domain of PATHOLOGICAL ANATOMY, we find the same elements in morbid growths that we have met with in normal structures. The pus-corpuscle and the white blood-corpuscle can only be distinguished by tracing them to their origin. A frequent form of so-called malignant disease proves to be only a collection of altered epithelium-cells. Even cancer itself has no specific anatomical element, and the diagnosis of a cancerous tumor by the ...

— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)

... for a certain diagnosis. Other signs must be used as a check on the blood examination for the establishment of the existence of anaemia. For instance, many cases here recorded had full normal or even supra-normal corpuscle-count, with a good percentage of haemoglobin. Yet they presented every external sign of poverty of blood: pallor of skin and, more important still, of mucous membranes, cold extremities, anorexia, indigestion, ...

— Fat and Blood - An Essay on the Treatment of Certain Forms of Neurasthenia and Hysteria • S. Weir Mitchell

Words linked to "Corpuscle" : grain, packed cells, grinding, vegetative cell, flyspeck, blood, white blood cell, erythrocyte, particle, white corpuscle, malpighian corpuscle, speck, renal corpuscle, somatic cell, blood corpuscle, Pacinian corpuscle, chylomicron, white cell, material, stuff, blood cell, leukocyte, red blood cell, RBC, corpuscular, mote, molecule, atom

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