cell (sel)

from The Century Dictionary.

• noun A small or close apartment, as in a convent or a prison.
• noun A small or mean place of residence, such as a cave or hermitage; a hut.
• noun In ecclesiastical history, a dependent religious house founded on the estate of an abbey under the jurisdiction of the abbot of the mother church.
• noun In architecture See cella, 1.
• noun In biol.:
• noun The fundamental form-element of every organized body.
• noun Specifically, a nucleated capsulated form-element of any structure or tissue; one of the independent protoplasmic bodies which build up an animal fabric; a body consisting of cell-substance, cell-wall, and cell-nucleus: as, bone-cells, cartilage-cells, muscle-cells, nerve-cells, fat-cells, cells of connective tissue, of mucous and serous membrane, etc., of the blood, lymph, etc.
• noun In Polyzoa, one of the cases or cups of the ectocyst or exoskeleton of a polyzoarium, containing an individual zoöid or polypid. See cuts under Plumatella and Polyzoa.
• noun In anatomy and zoology, some little cavity, compartment, camera, or hollow place; a cella or cellula; a vesicle; a capsule: a follicle; a corpuscle, etc.: as, the cells of honeycomb; the cells (not osteoblasts) of cancellous bone-tissue; the cells (compartments, not form-elements) of cellular or connective tissue; the cells, or cancelli, of the reticulated structure of an insect's wing (that is, the spaces between the nervures or veins); the cells of a foraminiferous or radiolarian shell; the cells (ventricles, cavities) of the brain; specifically, in entomology, the basal inclosed space of the wing of a lepidopterous insect, bounded by the subcostal and median veins, which are joined exteriorly.
• noun A division of the brain as the seat or abode of a particular faculty. [Poetical.]
• noun In electricity, a single jar or element of a voltaic battery.
• noun A structure of wrought-iron, consisting usually of four plates riveted to angle-irons.
• noun A small frame or box employed to hold or inclose a microscopic object.