Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. The pigment sensitive to red light in the retinal rods of the eyes, consisting of opsin and retinene. Also called visual purple.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. Visual purple; a pigment found in the outer segments of the retinal rods. It is quickly bleached by light, but the purple color is regained by placing the pigment in the dark. In the normal retina it is restored by the action of the pigmentary layer of cells.
Wiktionary
- n. A light-sensitive pigment in the rod cells of the retina; it consists of an opsin protein bound to the carotenoid retinal
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. The visual purple. See under visual.
WordNet 3.0
- n. a red photopigment in the retinal rods of vertebrates; dissociates into retinene by light
Etymologies
- rhod(o)- + Greek opsis, sight; see -opsis + -in.
Examples
“Another protein is rhodopsin, which is found in cells that make up the retina of the eye.”
“The scientists were able to see previously unobserved changes in the structure of rhodopsin, which is a model for the ubiquitous G protein coupled receptors (GPCRs), heptahelical, transmembrane receptors found in eukaryotic cells.”
“Saranak J, Patel N, Zarilli G, Okabe M, et al. (1984) A rhodopsin is the functional photoreceptor for phototaxis in the unicellular eukaryote”
“Blurred vision can be a lack of a light sensitive pigment called rhodopsin, or visual purple, that’s composed of vitamin A and protein.”
“This alters the way in which one of the proteins in the retina—rhodopsin, a pigment responsible for night vision as well as blue-green color vision—behaves.”
“Deyes goes on to discuss rhodopsin before throwing this red hot pepper in the pot:”
“De Santis says their retinal rhodopsin was destroyed.”
“They have opsins that they use for both light detection (sensory rhodopsin-I and sensory rhodopsin-II) *and* photosynthesis without chlorophyll (bacteriorhodopsin and halorhodopsin).”
“Surprisingly, it looks as if the critical light-sensitive protein at the centre of it all, rhodopsin, evolved from an ancestor in algae where it is used to calibrate light levels in photosynthesis.”
“Some bacteria even use rhodopsin for a type of photosynthesis.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘rhodopsin’.
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Visuals
A list of words which yield surprising, beautiful, amusing, or otherwise noteworthy images here on Wordnik.
photochrom, fufluns, thank you, cool l..., postcard, picture postcard, cricket, physiological ill..., Gakuryū Ishii, ametropia, One Froggy Evening, rhodopsin, Santiago Calatrava and 624 more...
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Archaic Colours
Words for colours that have fallen out of use.
aeneous, croceate, cretaceous, cramoisy, corbeau, coquelicot, coccineous, claret, cinerious, chrysochlorous, chlorochrous, cesious and 128 more...
blafferty Disappointment! No visuals? Jul 23, 2011
ruzuzu Visual purple. Aug 12, 2010