Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. A spicule or similar needlelike structure, such as a spine of an echinoderm or a copulatory organ in a nematode.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. In zoology, a spicula or spicule. Specifically— In some worms, a chitinous rod developed In the cloaca as a copulatory organ; a kind of penis.
- n. A needle-shaped splinter of bone.
Wiktionary
- n. A thrusting javelin used by Romans that replaced the pilum in the late 3rd century.
- n. A sharp, pointed crystal, especially of ice.
- n. zoology A sharp, needle-like structure, especially those making up the skeleton of a sponge.
- n. astronomy A small radial emission of gas seen in the chromosphere and corona of the sun.
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. (Zoöl.) Same as spicule.
WordNet 3.0
- n. small pointed structure serving as a skeletal element in various marine and freshwater invertebrates e.g. sponges and corals
Etymologies
- From Latin spīculum ("a little, sharp point"), from spīcum, alternative form of spīca ("point, spike"). (Wiktionary)
- Latin spīculum, diminutive of spīca, point, ear of grain. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“Rossiter in this autumn of 1917 was extremely interested in certain crucial experiments he was making with spiculum in sponge-cells; with scleroblasts, "mason-cells," osteoblasts, and "consciousness" in bone-cells.”
“Stream of emotional, creative impulse strong enough and hot enough to thaw the classical icebergs till not a floating spiculum of them is left.”
“After sundry caresses between the two parties, during which they exhibit an animation quite foreign to them at other times, one of the snails unfolds from the right side of its neck, where the generative orifice is situated, a wide sacculus, which, by becoming everted, displays a sharp dagger-like spiculum, or dart, attached to its walls.”
Plain facts for old and young : embracing the natural history and hygiene of organic life.
“Refining on the more delicate sound of stipes, the Latins got 'stipula,' the thin stem of straw: which rustles and ripples daintily in verse, associated with spica and spiculum, used of the sharp pointed ear of corn, and its fine processes of fairy shafts.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘spiculum’.
-
Words for ice and snow
Environmental Ice and Snow
(excluding all the food ice)ice, icicle, frazil, frasil, sleet, slush, snow, flurry, snowfall, freeze, flash-freeze, quick-freeze and 619 more...
-
Zoological Terms
Terms used in Zoology
papilionaceous, actinost, gressorial, exuviate, nitid, trochal, demiss, loculus, crebrity, limes, pachytrichous, pachydactyl and 319 more...
-
Botanical Terms
Terms used in botany
contabescence, effloresce, foliate, acervate, nuciform, feracious, fructuous, bifarious, serotinous, sative, demiss, tardive and 168 more...
-
Phylum Obscurata Botanica
It Makes The Words, or It gets The Hose. Again.
mormo, liparos, leptotes, gaster, graphe, opsis, kochliodes, cirrus, xhonseoa, rhynchos, kata, kalos and 157 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for spiculum.
missanthropist Latin Spike, sharp point or sting. Jul 9, 2008