glomerule
(ˈglɒməruːl)
Also in mod.L. form glomerulus (gləʊˈmɛr(j)ʊləs), pl. glomeruli.
[a. F. glomérule, ad. mod.L. glomerulus, dim. of glomer-, glomus ball, clue.]
1. Bot. a. A cluster or head of flowers (cf. quot. 1880).
| 1793 Martyn Lang. Bot., Glomerulus, a Glomerule, or small glome. 1806 J. Galpine Brit. Bot. 397 Amaranthus. Glomerules lateral. 1861 Bentley Bot. 212 The Glomerule..is a cyme which consists of a number of sessile flowers. 1880 Gray Struct. Bot. v. 152 One form of the regular cyme, on account of its compactness, is named the Glomerule. This is merely a cymose inflorescence, of any sort, which is condensed into the form of a head, or approaching it. |
b. A soredium.
| 1855 Ogilvie, Suppl. s.v., Glomerules are also the heaps of powdery bodies which lie upon the surface of the thallus of lichens; these are also called soredia. 1866 Treas. Bot. 535/1 Glomeruli. |
2. A compact cluster of small organisms, animal tissues, etc.; esp. a group or plexus of capillary blood-vessels, as those in the Malpighian corpuscles of the kidney.
| 1856 Quain's Elem. Anat. (ed. 6) III. 325 The Malpighian corpuscles.—These small red bodies or glomeruli, discovered by Malpighi. 1857 Dunglison Med. Lex. 245 A convoluted mass of blood-vessels, which constitutes the true glandule, corpuscle, or glomerule of Malpighi. 1872 Huxley Phys. v. 108 A bunch of looped Capillaries, called a glomerulus. 1874 Jones & Siev. Pathol. Anat. 102 What are called glomeruli or granule-cells. 1885 C. S. Dolley Technol. Bacteria Invest. 220 The Spirilla gradually gather upon the surface of the clot, often in large groups of twenty or more twisted up in a glomerule. |
Hence gloˌmeruˈlitis (see quot. 1885); gloˈmerulose a., gathered in small clusters.
| 1882 Crombie in Encycl. Brit. XIV. 556/2 Haplogonidia..of a protococcoid form, or sometimes glomerulose. 1885 Syd. Soc. Lex., Glomerulitis, inflammation of the glomeruli of Malpighi and their capsule. 1897 Allbutt's Syst. Med. II. 983 In the more chronic cases [of lead poisoning in rabbits] there was a glomerulitis followed by thickening of the vessels and interstitial nephritis. |