Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A swimming-bell; the bell-shaped or discoidal natatory organ with which many hydrozoans are provided, and by means of which the hydrosome is propelled through the water.

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

  • noun The swimming bell or umbrella of a jellyfish of medusa.
  • noun One of the zooids of certain Siphonophora, having somewhat the form, and the essential structure, of the bell of a jellyfish, and acting as a swimming organ.

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

  • noun zoology The swimming bell or umbrella of a jellyfish or medusa.
  • noun zoology One of the zooids of certain Siphonophora, having somewhat the form, and the essential structure, of the bell of a jellyfish, and acting as a swimming organ.

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

New Latin, from Ancient Greek.

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Examples

Comments

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  • discoidal natatory organ

    September 25, 2011

  • Buying or selling?

    September 26, 2011

  • One might call it a slumbrously undulatating obumbrant umbraculiform manubriumless umbrella, but it’s best not to.

    I also enjoy the CDC’s (probably now obsolete) use of the word person.

    September 26, 2011