inosculate, v.
(ɪnˈɒskjʊleɪt)
[f. in-2 + L. ōsculāre to furnish with a mouth or outlet, e.g. the veins (Cælius Aurelianus), f. ōsculum, dim. of ōs mouth (also a kiss, whence ōsculāre, -ārī to kiss).
The transitive uses occur chiefly in the passive voice.]
1. intr. Of blood-vessels, etc.: To open into each other, to unite or join by running together; to have connexion terminally; to anastomose.
| 1683 Snape Anat. Horse i. xxi. (1686) 44 Interwoven with the Veins, with which yet they do no where inosculate. 1737 Bracken Farriery Impr. (1757) II. 181 The Veins and Arteries cannot inosculate with one another, to make the Parts adhere. 1754–64 Smellie Midwif. I. 134 The arteries..at last end in small capillaries that inosculate with the veins. 1835–6 Todd Cycl. Anat. I. 748/2 The arteries of opposite sides inosculate with each other. |
2. Of fibres, solid parts, etc.: To unite by interpenetrating or fitting closely into each other.
| 1713 Derham Phys.-Theol. v. viii. (1727) 306 This fifth Conjugation of Nerves is branch'd..to the Præcordia also, in some Measure, by inosculating with one of its Nerves. 1816 Kirby & Sp. Entomol. (1843) I. 332 Which grooves by means of a most curious apparatus of hooks like those in the laminæ of a feather inosculate into each other. 1835 Kirby Hab. & Inst. Anim. II. xvii. 168 The thigh inosculates with the lower part of..the nameless bone. 1874 Carpenter Ment. Phys. i. ii. §37 (1879) 36 Minute fibrillae, which seem to inosculate with each other, so as to form a network. |
3. trans. To cause (blood-vessels, or the like) to open into each other; to connect by anastomosis.
| 1734 W. Giffard Cases Midwif. lvi. 128 The mouths of its vessels which were before inosculated into the Placenta. 1744 Berkeley Siris §34 Capillary arteries in the trunk, into which are inosculated other vessels of the bark. 1829 Southey Sir T. More I. 171 The vessels of the tumour are..inosculated into some of the principal veins and arteries. |
4. To cause (fibres, or the like) to interpenetrate or pass into each other.
| 1671 Grew Anat. Pl. i. ii. §14 'Tis most probable, that none of their Fibres are truly inosculated, saving perhaps, in the Plexures. 1673 ― Anat. Roots iii. §14 They seem..where they are Braced, to be Inosculated; so as to be pervious one into another. 1713 Derham Phys.-Theol. iv. iii. 129 The Branches of one of the auditory Nerves..[are] inosculated with the Nerves to go to the Heart and Breast. 1822–34 Good's Study Med. (ed. 4) IV. 325 The tumour was so adherent to other organs, and..inosculated with the omentum, that excision was impracticable. |
5. transf. and fig. a. intr. To pass into; to join or unite so as to become continuous; to blend.
| 1836 Blackw. Mag. XXXIX. 299 Mysticism, pantheism, and scepticism..to use a medical term, inosculate, and lead at last to the same result. 1853 Kane Grinnell Exp. vi. (1856) 47 A large strait, called the Waigat..inosculates with the bay. 1854 De Quincey Autobiog. Sk. Wks. II. 51 The points..at which theology inosculates with philosophy. 1874 Coues Birds N.W. 371 Data for determination of the line along which the two varieties inosculate. 1874 Carpenter Ment. Phys. ii. x. (1879) 429 Our ideas are thus linked in ‘trains’ or ‘series’, which..inosculate with each other like the branch lines of a railway. |
b. trans. To cause to grow together or unite closely so as to become continuous.
| 1829 Story Value Legal Stud. Misc. Writ. (1852) 505 The civil law..has been adopted, or, if I may say so, inosculated, into the juridical polity of all continental Europe, as a fundamental rule. 1830 Fraser's Mag. I. 548 How can you, then,..inosculate yourselves among the heathen—before that day arrives? a 1849 H. Coleridge Ess. (1851) II. 39 The licence lately revived of inosculating the stanzas [of elegiac measure] should be used sparingly. |
Hence inˈosculated ppl. a., grown together.
| 1883 J. C. Brown Forests Eng. 33 In Epping Forest there are..several curious specimens of ‘inosculated’ oaks, exhibiting the singular mode of growth so designated, by which two trees are united together. |