Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. A differentiated structure within a cell, such as a mitochondrion, vacuole, or chloroplast, that performs a specific function.
Wiktionary
- n. cytology A specialized structure found inside cells that carries out a specific life process (e.g. ribosomes, vacuoles).
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. (Biol.) a specialized part of a cell performing a specific function, usually visible under the microscope as a distinct object; it is analogous to an organ{2}, but on a microscopic scale.
WordNet 3.0
- n. a specialized part of a cell; analogous to an organ
Etymologies
- New Latin organella, diminutive of Medieval Latin organum, organ of the body, from Latin, implement, tool; see organ. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“You would conjecture that some organelle is designed, say.”
“This organelle is called the flagellum, made of a rotary motor and a thin helical filament that grows up to about 15 micron.”
A self-assembling nanomachine with fine switching capability
“Let me say here only that this organelle is exquisitely sensitive to light, to gravity, to stretch, and to a stimulus which we believe to be olfactory, and illustrate it with a few slides.”
“Carsonella might one day lose its identity altogether and become a permanent organ, or "organelle," inside the insect’s cell, the researcher speculate.”
Discovery of World’s Smallest Genome of Living Creatures | Impact Lab
“* The first artificial cell organelle may help researchers find a way to make bioengineered heparin and other synthetic drugs.”
“Here's a test with a science twist: which cell organelle are you?”
“Inside, the stunned viewers could see every organelle of the original amoeba, perfectly recreated.”
“The flagellum is IC as a motility organelle, if you remove one part, the machine doesn't work.”
“Jennifer Lippincott-Schwartz: chief, section on organelle biology, cell biology and metabolism branch, National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Md.”
Sixteen Women Elected to National Academy of Sciences - Chronicle.com
“Now, I might not like this definition, but people often refer to any cellular structure as an organelle.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘organelle’.
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old faves
ones I already liked
vacuole, organelle, debauchle, voluptuous, spry, cattywampus, obscure, occlude, occult, celtic, voracious, ardently and 133 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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The Collection
A somewhat discriminatory list of words and phrases collected for their euphonic or arcane appeal, interesting etymology, or concise definition of an otherwise unnamed phenomenon or concept.
ziggurat, neophilia, sucker punch, soporific, epoch, tundra, fiat, idiotproof, miscellany, metaphysics, cryptozoology, dysphoria and 850 more...
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biologic
protoplasm, microchimerism, organelle, panspermia, housekeeping gene, double crossover, incomplete dominance, bacteriophage, connectomics, antigenic drift, inoculation, punctuated equili... and 138 more...
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Scientifish
abluvion, anomic aphasia, atokous, balanophagy, chalcedony, chthonic, cimicine, coruscate, emunctory, erinaceous, cicatrix, exuvia and 29 more...
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annajane's Words
slumgullion, crivens, fob, albedo, heuristic, awkward, hirsute, wrath, aphasia, logorrhea, lachrymose, cohort and 52 more...
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ricetraitor's Words
vaticide, eyeball, pillow, deciduous, temerity, lush, vroom, catapult, cascade, bookish, banana, thrust and 18 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for organelle.
chained_bear "A third theory argues that viruses were once part of a cell, an organelle, but broke away and began to evolve independently."
—John M. Barry, The Great Influenza (NY: Penguin Books, 2004), 99 Feb 11, 2009