Online dictionaryOnline dictionary
Synonyms, antonyms, pronunciation

  Home
English Dictionary      examples: 'day', 'get rid of', 'New York Bay'




Membranous   Listen
adjective
Membranous  adj.  
1.
Pertaining to, consisting of, or resembling, membrane; as, a membranous covering or lining.
2.
(Bot.) Membranaceous.
Membranous croup (Med.), true croup. See Croup.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








Advanced search
     Find words:
Starting with
Ending with
Containing
Matching a pattern  

Synonyms
Antonyms
Quotes
Words linked to  

only single words



Share |
Add this dictionary
to your browser search bar





"Membranous" Quotes from Famous Books



... and has literally carved every rib and vein upon them, in relief; not merely the main ribs which sustain the lobes of the leaf, and actually project in nature, but the irregular and sinuous veins which chequer the membranous tissues between them, and which the sculptor has represented conventionally as relieved like the others, in order to give the vine leaf its peculiar tessellated effect ...
— Stones of Venice [introductions] • John Ruskin

... in the sea, fresh water, or on damp ground; of a membranous or horny byaline substance, filled with green or colorless granular matter. Fronds consisting of continuous tubular filaments, either free or collected into spongy masses of various shapes. Crustaceous, globular, cylindrical, or ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 384, May 12, 1883 • Various

... anxious-looking. It was disfigured by a number of longitudinal ruts, a quarter of an inch deep, the cavities of which seemed clogged with ancient dirt. The hair of his head was black and sparse. Instead of the twin membranous organs of Spadevil, he possessed but one; and this was in the centre of ...
— A Voyage to Arcturus • David Lindsay

... feet in length, and having feet whose bones were like those of terrestrial mammalia, eight species of large-eyed Ichthyosauri, the Geosaurus or 'Lacerta gigantea', of Sommering, and finally, seven remarkable species of Pterodactyles,* of Saurians furnished with membranous wings. ...
— COSMOS: A Sketch of the Physical Description of the Universe, Vol. 1 • Alexander von Humboldt

... itself in the earth ascends the vegetables in its vicinity, spirally W.S.E. or contrary to the movement of the sun; and absorbs its nourishment by vessels apparently inserted into its supporters. It bears no leaves, except here and there a scale, very small, membranous, and close under the branch. Lin. Spec. Plant. edit. a Reichard. Vol. I. p. 352. The Rev. T. Martyn, in his elegant letters on botany, adds, that, not content with support, where it lays hold, there it draws its nourishment; and at length, in gratitude for all this, strangles its ...
— The Botanic Garden. Part II. - Containing The Loves of the Plants. A Poem. - With Philosophical Notes. • Erasmus Darwin

... no nipples, and no regularly formed uterus, Mr. Home says, he was led to examine the female organ in birds, to see if there was any analogy between the oviducts in any of that class, and the two membranous uteri of this animal; but none could be observed; nor would it be easy to explain how an egg could lie in the vagina to receive its shell, as the urine from the bladder must pass directly over it. Finding ...
— An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, Vol. 2 • David Collins

... with opposite, rarely subalternate, simple, deciduous leaves. Fruit short-stemmed, with divergent pods, 2-4 in number, splitting open on the outer edges; each one-celled, with one row of lapping, pendulous seeds with membranous wings. ...
— Trees of the Northern United States - Their Study, Description and Determination • Austin C. Apgar

... perched, but suspended in the air on its moving wings, with its long snout protruded forward and pressed against the toe of the sleeper! Its sharp white teeth were visible in both jaws, and its small vicious eyes glistened under the light of the fires. The red hair covering its body and large membranous wings added to the hideousness of its aspect, and a more hideous creature could not have been conceived. It ...
— Popular Adventure Tales • Mayne Reid

... in the membranous parts of the system, as of the rectum intestinum, the urethra, the gula or throat; and of this kind is the verucca or wart, and the clavus pedum, or corns on the toes. A wen sometimes arises on the back of the neck, and sometimes ...
— Zoonomia, Vol. II - Or, the Laws of Organic Life • Erasmus Darwin

... mm. in diameter on the side of the head just back of the eye and a little below it. In the middle ear there is but one bone, the columella, forming the connecting link between the tympanum and the internal ear. The inner ear, which contains the sense organs, consists of a membranous bag, the chief parts of which are the utriculus, the sacculus, the lagena, and the three semicircular canals. The cavity of this membranous labyrinth is filled with a fluid, the endolymph; and within the utriculus, sacculus and lagena are masses of inorganic ...
— Harvard Psychological Studies, Volume 1 • Various

... shadow or as a picture. But remove the cause,—the body itself,—and the effect is removed. The man beholdeth himself in the glass and goeth his way, and straightway both the mirror and the mirrored forget what manner of man he was. These visible films or membranous exuviae of objects, which the old philosophers talked about, have no real existence, separable from their illuminated source, and perish ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, No. 20, June, 1859 • Various

... the membranous bract of Narcissus poeticus and the upper surface of the leaf is described by Moquin.[31] The same author mentions having seen a remarkable example of adhesion in the involucels of Caucalis leptophylla, the bracts of which were soldered to the outer surface of ...
— Vegetable Teratology - An Account of the Principal Deviations from the Usual Construction of Plants • Maxwell T. Masters

... leaves, often more or less covered with mealy hairs. The leaves are entire, lobed or toothed, often more or less deltoid or triangular in shape. The minute flowers are bisexual, and borne in dense axillary or terminal clusters or spikes. The fruit is a membranous one-seeded utricle often enclosed by the persistent calyx. Ten species occur in Britain, one of which, C. Bonus-Henricus, Good King Henry, is cultivated as a pot-herb, in lieu of asparagus, under the ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 1 - "Chtelet" to "Chicago" • Various

... bacteriological examination is impossible, or when the clinical features do not coincide with the results obtained, the patient should always be treated on the assumption that he suffers from diphtheria. So much doubt exists as to the real nature of membranous croup and its relationship to true diphtheria, that when the diagnosis between the two is uncertain the safest plan is to treat the case as ...
— Manual of Surgery - Volume First: General Surgery. Sixth Edition. • Alexis Thomson and Alexander Miles

... have been provided by nature for insuring their dispersion, as well as migration. With a small number of plants, for instance, the seeds are discharged for short distances by the explosive force of their seed-vessels, when properly matured; an equally small number have certain membranous contrivances, called "wings," by which they may be borne still greater distances; others, again, are provided with light feathery tufts, to which the seed is attached, and these may be carried by the winds several miles before finding a lodgment in the soil; while many ...
— Life: Its True Genesis • R. W. Wright

... said to build its nest in a deep hole beneath the ground. I dissected several specimens: the gizzard, which was very muscular, contained beetles, vegetable fibres, and pebbles. From this character, from the length of its legs, scratching feet, membranous covering to the nostrils, short and arched wings, this bird seems in a certain degree to connect the ...
— The Voyage of the Beagle • Charles Darwin

... of a part is generally preceded by a torpor or quiescence of it; if this exists in any large congeries of glands, as in the liver, or any membranous part, as the stomach, pain is produced and chilliness in consequence of the torpor of the vessels. In this situation sometimes an inflammation of the parts succeeds the torpor; at other times a distant more sensible part becomes inflamed; whose actions have ...
— Zoonomia, Vol. I - Or, the Laws of Organic Life • Erasmus Darwin

... is meant a spasmodic condition which usually affects children at night, and is in no way to be confounded with that really dangerous disease, membranous croup, or diphtheria, to which so many ...
— Health on the Farm - A Manual of Rural Sanitation and Hygiene • H. F. Harris

... of the vine kind, Piper nigrum, which twines its tendrils round poles or trees, like ivy or hops. The pepper-corns grow in bunches close to each other. They are first green, but afterwards turn black. When dried they are separated from the dust and partly from the outward membranous coat by means of a kind of winnow, and are then laid up in warehouses. The white pepper is the same production as the black. It undergoes a process to change its colour, being laid in lime, which takes off the outer black coat and ...
— James Braithwaite, the Supercargo - The Story of his Adventures Ashore and Afloat • W.H.G. Kingston

... colour. Just as the doctor was about to investigate one of them with his duck-shot, the enormously inflated tops of the creatures collapsed with a loud report, and the entire group soared away. When about to alight, forty yards off, they distended membranous folds in the manner of wings, which checked their descent, and on touching the ground remained where they were ...
— A Journey in Other Worlds - A Romance of the Future • John Jacob Astor

... imperceptibly from the distinctly vegetable condition (in which it is just as certainly representative of the thorn, as other parts of the design are of the bud, leaf, and fruit) into the crests on the necks, or the membranous sails of the wings, of serpents, dragons, and other grotesques, as in Fig. XVII., and into rich and vague fantasies of curvature; among which, however, the pure cusped system of the pointed arch is continually discernible, not accidentally, but designedly indicated, and connecting ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume II (of 3) • John Ruskin

... heart is a protective covering, called the pericardium. This consists of a closed membranous sac so arranged as to form a double covering around the heart. The heart does not lie inside of the pericardial sac, as seems at first glance to be the case, but its relation to this space is like that of the hand to the inside of an empty ...
— Physiology and Hygiene for Secondary Schools • Francis M. Walters, A.M.

... aquatic, as their limbs take the form of paddles; others were purely terrestrial, a large proportion were amphibious, and some, as the pterodactylus, bore the same relation to the rest of their class as the bats bear to the other mammalia, being furnished with membranous wings, supported upon a special development of the anterior limbs. One important characteristic of the race at this time was the great size of many of its members: thirty feet is by no means an uncommon length. ...
— The Story of Creation as told by Theology and by Science • T. S. Ackland

... there may be a convulsion, preceded by a sharp rise in the temperature. An examination in such cases may reveal a marked sore throat or a membranous deposit on the tonsils preceding the eruption, and nothing more. A chill followed by fever and vomiting ushers in a large number of cases. These may be mild or severe. The severity of these symptoms usually indicates the gravity ...
— Mother's Remedies - Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remedies from Mothers - of the United States and Canada • T. J. Ritter

... have a membranous sac, capable of considerable distension; it is usually called a crop, (by the scientific Ingluvies,) into which the food first descends after being swallowed. This bag is very conspicuous in the granivorous tribes immediately ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 13, - Issue 377, June 27, 1829 • Various

... force which drives these liquids through the membrane is considerable, and may sometimes be exerted against considerable pressure. A simple experiment will illustrate this force. In Fig. 2 is represented a membranous bag tightly fastened to a glass tube. The bag is filled with a strong solution of sugar, and is immersed in a vessel containing pure water. Under these conditions some of the sugar solution passes through the bag into the ...
— The Story of the Living Machine • H. W. Conn

... is a membranous sack situated in the sublumbar region and at the inlet to the pelvic cavity. It is held in position by numerous folds of the lining membrane of the abdominal cavity. We may divide the womb into three divisions, ...
— Common Diseases of Farm Animals • R. A. Craig, D. V. M.

... does not exceed their intelligence; in fishes the tongue is but a movable bone, in birds it is usually a membranous cartilage, and in quadrupeds it is often covered with scales and asperities, and has no ...
— The Physiology of Taste • Brillat Savarin

... seen," said he, with the air of a professor. "Insects of the order hymenopteres; if you ever learn Greek, Piccolissima, you will know that that means insects with membranous wings. Imagine what a fine thing it is to understand Greek. Every word contains in itself many others. For example, honey bees have a name still longer than the others; they are called mellificae. What do you say to that? They also call them ...
— Piccolissima • Eliza Lee Follen

... made in England.—Sir John Richardson describes, in his Narrative, the preparation of the pemmican that he took with him in his last journey. The following is a resume of what he says:—The meat used was round of beef; the fat and membranous parts were pared away; it was then cut into thin slices, which were dried in a malt-kiln, over an oak-wood fire, till they were quite dry and friable. Then they were ground in a malt mill; after this process the powder resembled finely-grated meal. It was next ...
— The Art of Travel - Shifts and Contrivances Available in Wild Countries • Francis Galton

... somewhat longer than the head; when not distended and in use it is doubled back in the cavity on the under side of the head. About half-way between the base and the middle is a pair of unjointed mouth-feelers (maxillary palpi). At the tip are two membranous lobes (Fig. 41) closely united along their middle line. These are covered with many fine corrugated ridges, which under the microscope look like fine spirals and are known as pseudotracheae. Thus it will be seen that the house-fly's mouth-parts are fitted for sucking and not for biting. Its ...
— Insects and Diseases - A Popular Account of the Way in Which Insects may Spread - or Cause some of our Common Diseases • Rennie W. Doane

... 4 inches in front of its external orifice. Even in her, however, the passing of a catheter is a matter of no little difficulty, the opening of the urethra being very narrow and encircled by the projecting membranous and rigid margins, and on each side of the opening is a blind pouch (canal of Gaertner) into which the catheter will almost invariably find its way. In both male and female, therefore, the passing of a catheter is an operation ...
— Special Report on Diseases of Cattle • U.S. Department of Agriculture

... negroes, and fled to seek safety. I found Dodie lying in a draught, before an open window, gasping for breath. I ran back to Mrs. Albright's,—I had found her much better to-day,—and she let her nurse come over. The nurse says that Dodie is threatened with membranous croup." ...
— The Marrow of Tradition • Charles W. Chesnutt

... attatched to the peduncle, where it is in a small degre concave like the insertion of the stem of the crab apple. I know not whether this fruit can properly be denominated a berry, it is a pulpy pericarp, the outer coat of which is in a thin smoth, tho firm tough pillecle; the pericarp containing a membranous capsule with from three to four cells, each containing a seperate single seed in form and colour like that of the wild crab. The wood of this tree is excessively hard when seasoned. the natives make great uce of it to form their wedges with which they split their boards ...
— The Journals of Lewis and Clark • Meriwether Lewis et al

... Some most delicate-flowered plants even defy the biting winds of these exposed regions; such are a prickly Meconopsis with slender flower-stalks and four large blue poppy-like petals, a Cyananthus with a membranous bell-shaped corolla, and a fritillary. Other curious plants were a little yellow saxifrage with long runners (very like the arctic S. flagellaris, of Spitzbergen and Melville Island), and the strong-scented ...
— Himalayan Journals (Complete) • J. D. Hooker

... internal lighting, reduced the apparent distance of the moon to eighty yards! He then distinctly perceived caverns frequented by hippopotami, green mountains bordered by golden lace-work, sheep with horns of ivory, a white species of deer and inhabitants with membranous wings, like bats. This brochure, the work of an American named Locke, had a great sale. But, to bring this rapid sketch to a close, I will only add that a certain Hans Pfaal, of Rotterdam, launching himself in a balloon filled with a gas extracted from nitrogen, thirty-seven times lighter ...
— Jules Verne's Classic Books • Jules Verne

... strangely organized and come very near to being a "connecting-link" between other forms. One of the Lemurs is what is known as the colugo, or "flying lemur," which resembles a squirrel in many particulars, and yet has a membranous web extending from its hands, which enables it to make flying leaps over great distances. This last named variety seems to furnish a link between the insect-feeders and ...
— A Series of Lessons in Gnani Yoga • Yogi Ramacharaka

... of a dense cellular tissue of membranous matter, made stiff and rigid by insoluble earthy salts; of which, phosphate of lime is the most abundant. In a large bone, the insoluble matter is generally deposited in such a manner as to leave a cavity, into ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton

... the innocent is the false popular belief that venereal germs are transmitted only in sexual congress. The truth is that any part of the body is in danger of inoculation from syphilis if the germ be virulent. So may any membranous point be infected by the gonococcus, whether conveyed by hand or instrument or fabric. This explains the number of gonococcic infections occurring in girl children. They come in membranous contact (at the outlet of vagina or rectum, or in the eye) with a contaminated ...
— The Social Emergency - Studies in Sex Hygiene and Morals • Various

... it does not amount to much. A very few years after his time, however, there was a Greek philosopher, Erasistratus, who lived about three hundred years before Christ, and who must have pursued anatomy with much care, for he made the important discovery that there are membranous flaps, which are now called "valves," at the origins of the great vessels; and that there are certain other valves in the interior ...
— William Harvey And The Discovery Of The Circulation Of The Blood • Thomas H. Huxley

... claws, beneath which is a flat, soft, fleshy cushion or pad, split into two (sometimes three) flaps, beset on the under surface with fine hairs. A part of these hairs are swollen at the end, which is covered with "an elastic membranous expansion, capable of close contact with a highly polished surface, from which a minute quantity of a clear, transparent fluid is emitted when the fly is actively moving." (T. West.) These hairs are hence called holding, or tenent, hairs. With the aid of these, but mainly, as Mr. ...
— Our Common Insects - A Popular Account of the Insects of Our Fields, Forests, - Gardens and Houses • Alpheus Spring Packard

... very scrubby country, opening occasionally into fine flats thinly timbered with true box, which was at that time in blossom. I noticed a small tree (Santalum oblongatum, R. Br.), very remarkable for having its branches sometimes slightly drooping, and at other times erect, with membranous glaucous elliptical leaves, from an inch to an inch and a half long, and three-quarters broad, with very indistinct nerves, and producing a small purple fruit, of very agreeable taste. I had seen this tree formerly at the Gwyder, ...
— Journal of an Overland Expedition in Australia • Ludwig Leichhardt

... remaining six are, however, perfectly new, and will chiefly augment the last section of that genus, having hard (in some instances spherical) woody follicles, containing seeds orbicularly surrounded by a membranous wing, more or less dilated, and a deciduous style; characters that future botanists may deem sufficient to justify its separation from Grevillea. The range of this division, which has been named by Mr. Brown, Cycloptera, has been hitherto ...
— Narrative of a Survey of the Intertropical and Western Coasts of Australia] [Volume 2 of 2] • Phillip Parker King

... and the right and left ventricles. They are arranged in two pairs, the auricle uppermost, separated by a fleshy partition. Between each auricle and its ventricle is a valve, which consists of strong membranous flaps, with loose edges turned downwards. The left-side valve is the mitral valve, that between the right auricle and ventricle the tricuspid valve. The edges of the valves fall together when the heart contracts, ...
— How it Works • Archibald Williams



Words linked to "Membranous" :   unhealthy, membranous labyrinth, membrane-forming



Copyright © 2024 Dictionary One.com