CORPUSCLE • FREE-TRANSLATOR.COM • 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

... can ever isolate himself to evade this constant power of influence, as no single corpuscle can rebel and escape from the general course of the blood. No individual is so insignificant as to be without influence. The changes in our varying moods are all recorded in the delicate barometers of the lives of others. We should ever let our influence filter through human love and sympathy. We ...

— The Majesty of Calmness • William George Jordan

... forests every year in pursuit of big game; and he had heard of enduring hardships in a "sporting" way. But the term was already threadbare,—and the journey only commenced. The reason went back to the simple fact that Lounsbury was not a sportsman and never could be, that the red corpuscle content in his blood was wholly within ...

— The Snowshoe Trail • Edison Marshall

... from the hostile influences of the outer world. As soon as, by condensation of the homogeneous moneron, a cell-kernel arose in the interior, and a membrane arose on the surface, all the fundamental parts of the unit were then furnished. Such a unit was an organism, similar to the white corpuscle of the blood, and called amoebae. Here we have two different stages of evolution; the protoplasma (better plasson) of the cytod undergoes differentiation, and is split up into two kinds of albuminous ...

— Was Man Created? • Henry A. Mott

... 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 ...

— The Breath of Life • John Burroughs

... because she was not sure the application would be correct. Perhaps what urged her interest in the young man's direction was the dead whiteness of his face, the puffed eyelids and the bloodshot whites. She knew the significance: the red corpuscle was being burnt out by the fires of alcohol. Was he, too, on the way to the beach? What a pity! All alone, and none to warn him of the abject wretchedness at the ...

— The Ragged Edge • Harold MacGrath

... arrange themselves, take the same situation and form the same figure as nature had primitively bestowed on them; retaining the inclination to become what they had been, they return to their first destination, and form themselves into the same lines as they occupied in the living plant; each corpuscle of salt re-entering its original arrangement which it received from nature; those which were at the foot of the plant place themselves there; in the same manner, those which compose the top of the stem, the branches, the leaves, and the flowers, resume their former place, and thus form a perfect ...

— The Phantom World - or, The philosophy of spirits, apparitions, &c, &c. • Augustin Calmet

... in its revolutions; as 'tis another, that every body in the creation moves (which is a sort of life); and that nothing moves but has another animal moving on it; and so on, to the utmost minutest corpuscle that's capable of being ...

— Folk-Lore and Legends - Scotland • Anonymous

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

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