‖ corˈpusculum
Pl. -ula.
[L.; dim. of corpus body; formerly used instead of corpuscle; also in It. form corpusculo, and with incorrect pl. in -a's.]
1. = corpuscle 1.
| 1650 Bulwer Anthropomet. ii. (1653) 71 Cacexicate their petty Corpusculums. 1674 Petty Disc. Dupl. Proportion Introd. A v, Atoms (such, whereof perhaps a Million do not make up one visible Corpusculum). 1721 R. Bradley Wks. Nat. 154 Such Effluvia or Corpuscula's, as rise from the Earth or Waters. 1823 Lamb Elia Ser. i. xxi. (1865) 166 The agreeable levities..the twinkling corpuscula which should irradiate a right friendly epistle. |
b. Bot. (pl.) The central cells of the archegonia of Gymnosperms, within which the germinal vesicles are produced: so named by R. Brown who discovered them in 1834.
| 1844 R. Brown Annals Nat. Hist. XIII. 373 My areolæ or corpuscula, which he denominates large cells in the embryo-sac or albumen. 1875 tr. Sachs' Bot. 434. |
† 2. A small body of men; a small ecclesiastical body. Obs.
| 1653 Gauden Hierasp. Pref. to Rdr. 11 Inamoured with their Corpusculo's, the little new bodies of their gathered Churches. 1659 ― Tears of Church 43 These new corpusculas of separate churches. |