gluten
(ˈgl(j)uːtɛn)
Also 8 glutton.
[a. L. glūten glue, perh. through F. gluten (16th c.).]
1. Any sticky substance; a gum or glue. rare.
| 1639 Du Verger tr. Camus' Admir. Events 98 The love of vertue (which was the cement, or gluten of their friend⁓ship). 1821 Craig Lect. Drawing ii. 110 The use of some kind of gum, or gluten, by way of size. 1870 Emerson Soc. & Solit., Civiliz. Wks. (Bohn) III. 8 The power of a wafer or a drop of wax or gluten to guard a letter. |
b. A viscid animal secretion.
| 1802 Bingley Anim. Biog. (1813) III. 456 The gluten supplied by a gland [in the mussel]. 1834 R. Mudie Brit. Birds I. 224 Those swallows which construct their nests of humid mud (they too may secrete less or more of a similar gluten) never build so high..as the swift. |
† 2. The albuminous element of animal tissues, now called fibrin. Sometimes animal gluten.
| 1597 Lowe Chirurg. i. vi. (1634) 21 The fourth [humour] is called Gluten, and is the proper humiditie of the similar parts. 1658 A. Fox tr. Wurtz' Surg. i. vi. 22 With that poaking and searching they break and destroy that natural Gluten or Balsom (which settleth for the healing, and is the healing it self). 1746 R. James in Moufet & Bennet Health's Improv. Introd. 65 The much smaller Quantity of the oleaginous Liquor that is found in fresh Vegetables, in Comparison of what is found in Flesh..prevents the Formation of a too tenacious Glutton. 1800 Henry Epit. Chem. (1808) 306 Gluten forms the basis of the muscular or fleshy parts of animals. 1822–34 Good's Study Med. (ed. 4) I. 547 Fibrin or fibrous matter, frequently also called coagulable lymph, and gluten. |
3. The nitrogenous part of the flour of wheat or other grain, which remains behind as a viscid substance when the starch is removed by kneading the flour in a current of water.
| 1803 Med. Jrnl. X. 45 The eighth part of these 45, seems to be resin, intimately mixed with gluten. 1822 J. Imison Sci. & Art II. 128 Gluten is insoluble in water and is elastic like elastic gum. 1837 M. Donovan Dom. Econ. II. 301 Wheat contains pure vegetable matter along with..gluten, which very much approximates to the character of animal matter. 1845 Todd & Bowman Phys. Anat. I. 40 Gluten..yields a principle which is called vegetable fibrine. 1876 Harley Mat. Med. (ed. 6) 371 Oats contain a larger proportion of gluten than any of the other cereals in use. |
4. Geol. A tenacious mass (as of clay, bitumen, etc.). So F. gluten. ? Obs.
| 1811 Pinkerton Petral. I. 530 A pudding-stone of fragments of black hornstein in a gluten of clay, iron, and lime. |
5. Comb., as gluten-bread, bread containing a large proportion of gluten, prescribed in the diet of patients suffering from diabetes; gluten-casein, -fibrin, the vegetable casein and fibrin which form constituents of gluten.
| 1846 G. E. Day tr. Simon's Anim. Chem. II. 296 Gluten-bread containing only one-half the amount of starch, but three times the amount of nitrogenous matter, was given in its place. 1876 Trans. Clinical Soc. IX. 148 A partially restricted dietary was commenced, gluten bread being substituted for the ordinary loaf. 1885 G. L. Goodale Physiol. Bot. 363 Casein of plants comprises the following substances: legumin, gluten-casein, conglutin. Ibid. 364 Gelatin of plants. The associated matters are (1) Gliadin, (2) Mucedin, (3) Gluten-fibrin. |