rete

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

• noun An anatomical mesh or network, as of veins, arteries, or nerves.

from The Century Dictionary.

• noun In certain astrolabes, a movable skeleton framework cut out of a circular sheet of metal, and lying between the planisphere and the diopter or alidade. It carries one or two pointers, also an eccentric ring marked with the signs of the zodiac, and several curved arms indicating the place of the pole of the ecliptic and of certain stars.
• noun In anatomy, a vascular network; a plexus, glomerulus, or congeries of small vessels: in botany, a structure like network.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

• noun (Anat.) A net or network; a plexus; particularly, a network of blood vessels or nerves, or a part resembling a network.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

• noun anatomy A network of blood vessels or nerves.
• noun An anatomical part resembling or including a network.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

• noun a network of intersecting blood vessels or intersecting nerves or intersecting lymph vessels