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  1. spicule love

Definitions

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

  1. n. A small needlelike structure or part, such as one of the silicate or calcium carbonate processes supporting the soft tissue of certain invertebrates, especially sponges.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

  1. n. A fine-pointed body resembling a needle: as, ice -spicules.
  2. n. In botany:
  3. n. A spikelet.
  4. n. One of the small projections or points on the basidia of hymenomycetous fungi which bear the spores. There are usually four to each basidium. See sterigma.
  5. n. In zoology, a hard, sharp body like a little spike, straight or curved, rod-like, or branched, or diversiform; a spiculum; a sclere: variously applied, without special reference to size or Shape. Specifically— One of the skeletal elements, scleres, or spicula of the protozoans, as radiolarians, either calcareous or silicious, coherent or detached. See cuts under Radiolaria and Sphærozoum.
  6. n. In botany, the empty frustule of a diatom.

Wiktionary

  1. n. A sharp, needle-like piece
  2. n. biology Any of many needle-like crystalline structures that provide skeletal support in marine invertebrates like sponges
  3. n. astronomy A jet of matter ejected from the photosphere of the sun
  4. n. A small spike of flowers

GNU Webster's 1913

  1. n. A minute, slender granule, or point.
  2. n. (Bot.) Same as Spicula.
  3. n. (Zoöl.) Any small calcareous or siliceous body found in the tissues of various invertebrate animals, especially in sponges and in most Alcyonaria.

WordNet 3.0

  1. n. small pointed structure serving as a skeletal element in various marine and freshwater invertebrates e.g. sponges and corals

Etymologies

  1. Latin spīculum; see spiculum. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)

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Lists

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  • chained_bear "I remembered what Fergus had said, in answer to Jamie's instructions: 'I remember how this game is played.' So did I, and spicules of ice began to form in my blood."
    —Diana Gabaldon, A Breath of Snow and Ashes (New York: Bantam Dell, 2005), 688 Feb 3, 2010

  • vanishedone NASA: 'Imagine a pipe as wide as a state and as long as half the Earth. Now imagine that this pipe is filled with hot gas moving 50,000 kilometers per hour. Further imagine that this pipe is not made of metal but a transparent magnetic field. You are envisioning just one of thousands of young spicules on the active Sun.' Nov 3, 2008

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‘spicule’ has been looked up 1197 times, loved by 2 people, added to 10 lists, commented on 2 times, and has a Scrabble score of 11.