Definitions

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

  • noun One of the long bristlelike zooids of a bryozoan, which move in a whiplike manner.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun One of the long filamentous or flagelliform appendages of the cells or ectocysts of many polyzoans, usually articulated with short dilated processes of the ectocyst, and executing constant lashing movements by the contraction of muscles contained in their dilated bases; a flabellarium.

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

  • noun (Zoöl.) One of the movable, slender, spinelike organs or parts with which certain bryozoans are furnished. They are regarded as specially modified zooids, of nearly the same nature as Avicularia.

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

  • noun A long, whiplike, modified zooid on the surface of certain colonies of bryozoa

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[New Latin vibrāculum, from Latin vibrāre, to shake; see vibrate.]

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Examples

  • It is not easy to imagine two objects more widely different in appearance than a bristle or vibraculum, and an avicularium like the head of a bird; yet they are almost certainly homologous and have been developed from the same common source, namely a zooid with its cell.

    VII. Miscellaneous Objections to the Theory of Natural Selection 1909

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