‖ pia mater Anat.
(ˈpaɪə ˈmeɪtə(r))
[med.L.; a somewhat incorrect rendering of the Arabic name umm raqīqah ‘thin or tender mother’ (Ibn Duraid, a.d. 933): cf. names of other investing membranes in umm mother, esp. dura mater.
(Fanciful explanations of the name are frequent in western writers: cf. quot. 1548.)]
A delicate fibrous and very vascular membrane which forms the innermost of the three meninges enveloping the brain and spinal cord; the other two being the arachnoid and the dura mater. In quots. 1593, 1606 transf. = brain.
| c 1400 Lanfranc's Cirurg. 112 Pia mater enuyrounneþ al þe brayn, & departiþ him into iij celoles þat ben chaumbris. 1525 [see dura mater]. 1548–77 Vicary Anat. iv, It is called Piamater..for because it is so softe and tender ouer the brayne, that it nourisheth the brayne and feedeth it, as doth a louing mother vnto her tender childe. 1593 Nashe Four Lett. Confut. Wks. (Grosart) II. 272 Thou turmoilst thy pia mater to prove base births better than the ofspring of many discents. 1606 Shakes. Tr. & Cr. ii. i. 78 His Piamater is not worth the ninth part of a Sparrow. 1761 Brit. Mag. II. 116 An inflammation of the pia mater, which had produced a most furious delirium. 1854 Jones & Siev. Pathol. Anat. (1875) 232 The arachnoid is entirely dependent for its supply of blood upon the pia mater. |
| fig. 1681 Whole Duty Nations 35 It becomes the very ligament and sinews of Government, a pia mater to the sacredness of Authority. |
Hence
pia-ˈmatral a., of or pertaining to the pia mater;
= pial.
| 1887 H. Gray's Anat. (ed. 11) 805 Between the pia-matral and the arachnoid sheath. |