Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. An unattached body cell, such as a blood or lymph cell.
- n. A rounded globular mass of cells, such as the pressure receptor on certain nerve endings.
- n. A discrete particle, such as a photon or an electron.
- n. A minute globular particle.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. A minute particle, molecule, or atom of matter.
- n. In zoology and anatomy, some small body regarded by itself and characterized by a qualifying term: usually a body of microscopic size; a cell. See phrases below.
- n. In botany, specifically, one of several large cells within the endosperm and near the summit of the embryo sac in gymnosperms, from which after fertilization an embryo is developed: so named by R. Brown. They are styled by Sachs archegonia, and are considered by him to be of the same nature as the archegonia of the higher cryptogams. They have also been called
secondary embryo-sacs . - n. Same as corposant.
- n. Of the kidney, small globular masses of dark-red color, found in the cortical substance of the organ, consisting of a central glomerulus of blood-vessels (the Malpighian tuft), and of a membranous capsule which is the beginning of a uriniferous tubule.
- n. In electricity, a body smaller than an atom, assumed to explain the phenomena of electric discharges in gases, and of radioactivity.
Wiktionary
- n. A minute particle; an atom; a molecule.
- n. A protoplasmic animal cell; esp., 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.
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. A minute particle; an atom; a molecule.
- n. (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 cartilagecorpuscles . See Blood. - n. (Physics), archaic An electron.
WordNet 3.0
- n. either of two types of cells (erythrocytes and leukocytes) and sometimes including platelets
- n. (nontechnical usage) a tiny piece of anything
Etymologies
- From Latin corpusculum, diminutive of corpus ("body"). (Wiktionary)
- Latin corpusculum, diminutive of corpus, body; see kwrep- in Indo-European roots. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“The first theory put forward by Sir J.J. Thomson in explanation of these facts, was that these kathode particles ( "corpuscles" as he termed them) were electrically charged portions of matter, much smaller than the smallest atom; and since the same sort of corpuscle is obtained whatever gas is contained in the vacuum tube, it is reasonable to conclude that the corpuscle is the common unit of all matter.”
“The corpuscle, which is perfectly visible to the naked eye (and which can be most easily demonstrated in the mesentery of a cat), consists of a number of lamellæ or capsules arranged more or less concentrically around a central clear space, in which the nerve fiber is contained.”
“There are others, of rare occurrence in chains, which have a clear corpuscle, that is to say, a portion more refractive than other parts of the segments, at one of their extremities.”
“The parallel is now plain to the reader: the corpuscle is the Yogi, bent on liberation: the heat which warms him is the Divine Love, centered in his heart, his initiations are the successive emancipations into higher and higher spaces, till he attains”
“My good friend and fellow "corpuscle" member of Corpus Christi College, Oxford Fr Paul Haffner, wrote a good book on the thought of Fr Jaki: "Creation and Scientific Creativity: A Study in the Thought of S.L. Jaki.”
“The trouble is that the analysis ” absurdly ” makes it seem as though when two things have one degree of brightness there could be a substantive question which of the two ” x or y ” it was ” as though a degree of brightness were some kind of corpuscle whose association with a thing made it bright (cf. Klagge and Nordmann,”
“My bones will rob me blind, corpuscle by corpuscle.”
“It all starts with the photon, that little corpuscle of light.”
The Huffington Post: Peter Baksa: Can Quantum Physics Explain God?
“I'll stumble into something that takes me down a magic breadcrumb trail and it feels ecstatic and I know I'm onto something and then I can usually find satisfaction to some degree -- not entirely, ever, of course -- I'll know I've put my every corpuscle into it and I don't regret having done it.”
The Huffington Post: Dylan Brody: Jeanmarie Simpson -- Artivist in the Modern Landscape (Part 2)
““Every corpuscle of every society in the history of this globe has religion at its core!””
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘corpuscle’.
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LIT - Ulysses - key words and phrases
vanish, number one, archangel, commodious, dominie, rubble, glisten, morose, spindle, ventilation, Blessed, christian and 503 more...
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Interesting words
A list of words that are odd or words that I have looked up.
concupiscence, brize, scree, scoria, forestaff, spanaemia, valetudinarianism, distasture, pyrethrum, laudanum, gentian, bicameral and 11184 more...
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gross
corpuscle, globule, botched, botulism, pustulent, swampy, splenic, distended, turgid, maw, retch, spew and 13 more...
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For the sound of it
delineate, ubiquarian, abaculus, gelid, stem-winder, alpenglow, ligature, corpuscle, corroboree, columnar, cuboidal, squamous and 10 more...
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Latin Spelling Bee List
need to know these words!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
inane, ambivalent, incriminate, interrupt, amicable, meticulous, animosity, curriculum, electoral, transect, condolences, bugle and 132 more...
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hildjj's Words
bookmarklet, demisemiquaver, zeitgeist, hermeneutics, oligarch, quisling, absinthe, mellifluent, verisimilitude, implacable, necrotic, nacreous and 243 more...
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words/phrases I wish I could find mor...
puttin' on the dog, smarty, smarty ha..., murgatroyd, treshstra, puissance, corpuscle, socker kaka, peckish, hullabaloo, salvo, holy guacamole, b..., cascade and 112 more...
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The Sog Collection
My big word list.
chaos, flaccid, empirical, flotsam, cacophony, grumble, assuage, awe, romance, mortality, coalesce, fortuitous and 3282 more...
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inkhorn's Words
inkhorn, aplomb, apotheosis, asinine, avatar, bombastic, boorish, bromide, bucolic, cagey, canvass, digress and 991 more...
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elvesoncrack's Words
lachrymose, blustering, fjord, chihuahua, chiffon, catalytic, stile, gefilte, prosh, thwart, ralph, ickle and 379 more...
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know-it-all
eunuch, couvade, ecclesiastes, enigma, inevitable, crucible, genteel, bedlam, baculum, scapulimancy, atrophy, smut and 170 more...
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Thought Provoking
revolute, polemic, coalesce, listless, enigmatology, botulism, corpuscle, vestigial
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Chained Bear's Favorite Words
peruvian, sparky, poop, etymological, fuck, whatnot, pulchritude, nosh, tetched, quotidian, squalid, trajectory and 388 more...
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Nabokov vocabulary
verisimilitude, geminate, pedantic, intervestibular, equilibrist, nictitating, anastomosis, quiddity, torus, cacahuete, undulation, pensum and 135 more...
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Miscellany, pt. c
chokedamp, clitter, circumbendibus, catmint, cacoëpy, co-feoffee, caribou, conturbation, chalicothere, calamus, cochineal, cincture and 168 more...
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NeoVolt's Words
schadenfreude, serendipity, idiosyncrasy, loess, caducous, vagary, schematic, steeple, licentious, tangential, verisimilitude, vernacular and 385 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for corpuscle.

exquisite Moreover, the Moon ---
by Mina Loy
Face of the skies
preside
over our wonder.
Fluorescent
truant of heaven
draw us under.
Silver, circular corpse
your decease
infects us with unendurable ease,
touching nerve-terminals
to thermal icicles
Coercive as coma, frail as bloom
innuendoes of your inverse dawn
suffuse the self;
our every corpuscle become an elf. Dec 28, 2006