Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. A mineral crystallizing in another mineral in the form of branching or treelike mark.
- n. A rock or mineral bearing such a mark or marks.
- n. A branched protoplasmic extension of a nerve cell that conducts impulses from adjacent cells inward toward the cell body. A single nerve may possess many dendrites. Also called dendron.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. A stone or a mineral on or in which are figures resembling shrubs, trees, or mosses. The appearance is often due to arborescent crystallization, resembling frostwork on windows. The figures are most abundant on the surfaces of fissures and in joints in rocks, where they are attributable to the presence of the hydrous oxid of manganese, which generally assumes such forms.
- n. A complex crystalline growth of arborescent form, such as is common with metallic silver and copper.
- n. In neural., one of the protoplasmic processes of a nerve-cell: opposed to *neurite, the axis-cylinder. See cut at *neuron.
Wiktionary
- n. cytology A slender projection of a nerve cell which conducts nerve impulses from a synapse to the body of the cell; a dendron.
- n. cytology Slender cell process emanating from the cell bodies of dendritic cells and follicular dendritic cells of the immune system.
- n. crystallography, metallurgy tree-like structure of crystals growing as material crystallizes
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. (Min.) A stone or mineral on or in which are branching figures resembling shrubs or trees, produced by a foreign mineral, usually an oxide of manganese, as in the moss agate; also, a crystallized mineral having an arborescent form, e. g., gold or silver; an arborization.
WordNet 3.0
- n. short fiber that conducts toward the cell body of the neuron
Etymologies
- From Ancient Greek δενδρίτης (dendrites, "of or pertaining to a tree"). (Wiktionary)
Examples
“The word dendrite means fingers; the organic glue and the surfactant used to shape the Clay NanoSheets used in this hydrogel both have fingers that reach out and grab the nearby elements, holding it all together.”
“A dendrite is a projection from a neuron that receives signals from the axons of its neighbors.”
“Based on rat studies, they hypothesize that "dendrite arborization" -- an increased branching growth of nerve cells -- caused by chronic antidepressant exposure, may be the cause.”
The Huffington Post: Dr. Peter Breggin: New Research: Antidepressants Can Cause Long-Term Depression
“At the initial contact, the connection—the synapse—is quite weak; the dendrite can easily detach and hunt for another neuron.”
“The dendrite can even detach, eliminating that synapse altogether.”
“Inside this gap chemicals flow, and that flow makes a dendrite choose whether to send a signal to the nucleus.”
“In reality, inputs from various levels of the nervous system arrive at different parts of a dendrite.”
“Zinc wants to plate out as a dendrite instead of a smooth surface.”
“The most promising appears to be using a separator that is hard and prevents the dendrite from growing.”
“Reading about the dendrite problem, I thought of of one of old time washing machines, the kind with two pinch rollers on top to squeeze the water out of the rollers?”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘dendrite’.
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G[r]eek
A collection of words found in English that are either purely Greek or have Greek etymology.
Please add with caution and certainty. Will be regularly updated by me.etymology, philosophy, laconic, disharmony, patriarchic, archaic, phlogiston, aether, aeon, angel, arachnid, rhythm and 346 more...
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SCIE - neurology
abducens.....draw..., ablation.....carr..., acetylcholine......., adrenalin.....nea..., afferent.....to c..., agnosia.....no kn..., alar.....wing-like, alexia.....no words, alveus.....canal, amacrine.....no l..., ambidextrous........, ambiguus.....doub... and 701 more...
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BIOL - the brain
ruptured blood ve..., clot, pressure on a blo..., tumor, brain region, comprehension of ..., production of mea..., autonomic nervous..., conservation of t..., catecholamine, arousal, regulation of sleep and 564 more...
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inquiryqueue's list
words delicious to pronounce
apostrophe, asphodel, anemone, cantaloupe, cantalevered, cardamom, coriander, petrichor, sycamore, luminous, tendril, peculiar and 122 more...
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dendro-, dendr-, -dendron
denoting or relating to a tree or trees
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slumry's Words
cattywampus, ingratiate, lackadaisical, exactitude, exfoliate, fulminate, circumnavigation, circuitous, debride, sidle, sequester, chicory and 1002 more...
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polymorph's Words
pornerastic, yeaux, enantiadromia, synchronicity, transubstantiation, sensimilla, slough, scaphism, symbiosis, prolix, orgiastic, cryptogamic and 245 more...
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Outlander series words
A place for me to keep words I found (or found anew) while reading Diana Gabaldon's Outlander series. (Culling my enormous "Learned (or Encountered) in Reading" list.)
gralloch, yeuk, corpse-candle, saprophytic, baldachin, Kermanshah, celandine, tynchal, quaich, mesentery, basidium, dittany and 244 more...
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Learned (or Encountered) in Reading
I have a list for words learned from Newsweek; here's where I keep all the stuff from other shit I read.
Except when I'm looking stuff up and find new words that way. Those go on their...cellie, laminectomy, mridangam, terroir, hypospadias, crus, corpora cavernosa, crura, uretheral meatus, bartholin's gland, coloquintida, colopexy and 921 more...
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play words
words for a play
pert, vicissitude, melancholy, vexation, gaud, attestation, renunciation, wax, wrought, sunder, antipodes, reckoning and 236 more...
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Just 'cause I like 'em, D
dodecahedron, din, diglyceride, dysphotopsia, decoction, deboss, diatonic, dithyramb, divagate, discalced, dishdasha, daft and 281 more...
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researchgirl's Words
palpable, vade mecum, penumbra, ephemera, esoteric, quirky, quintessential, aphorism, amnesia, insomnia, synesthesia, apostasy and 186 more...
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nfrank's Words
antediluvian, equivocate, inchoate, denouement, effulgent, edify, endemic, palimpsest, apropos, circumnavigate, circumlocution, cognoscente and 484 more...
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nfk9595's Words
magnetohydrodynamics, bovine, epistle, gargantuan, kerfuffle, verbiage, morose, coup de main, elan, achtung, uber, verboten and 497 more...
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trisherrata's Words
gendarme, proficient, exculpatory, disingenuous, smitten, mendacity, meretricious, vertiginous, ineffable, languor, exsanguinate, eponymous and 45 more...
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elegant earth words
Because the other elements see all the beauty. Yet earth is viridian foliage and crystalline chasms, glittering seams of frozen light and vast mountainous expanses. Look these words up, and discove...
lapidescent, rupestrine, chthonian, argilliferous, crystalline, champaign, saprolite, epierogeny, archipelago, yggdrasil, geognosis, geolatry and 23 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for dendrite.

chained_bear "It was too cold to form the lacy star-patterned crystals known as dendrites—the pretty snowflakes of Christmas cards. Too cold for the little pellets of graupel that accrete as ice crystals glue on layer after layer of supercooled droplets...."
—David Laskin, The Children's Blizzard (New York: HarperCollins, 2004), 120
Another usage on axon. Nov 11, 2008