osselet
(ˈɒsəlɪt, ˈɒslɛt)
Also 8 oslet, osslet.
[a. F. osselet a little bone (12th c. in Hatz.-Darm.), f. L. os, oss- bone: see -let.]
1. A little bone, an ossicle; one of the small bones of the carpus or tarsus.
| 1686 A. Snape Anat. Horse v. xi. 219 The Seven Osselets or little Bones that make the Knee. Ibid. xvi. 233 The Leg-bone and Ranges of Osselets which make that part we call the Hock. 1816 Singer Hist. Cards 318 Athenæus..says, that the ‘games of dice and osselets were in use at the time Troy was besieged by the Greeks’. |
2. Farriery. (See quot.)
| c 1720 W. Gibson Farrier's Guide ii. lxxviii. (1738) 234 Oslets are little hard substances that arise among the small bones of the knee. 1737 Bracken Farriery Impr. (1756) I. 323 Splents, Osslets, Spavins, and Ring-bones. |
3. The cuttle-bone, pen, or calamary of some cephalopods.
| 1849 Dana Geol. App. i. (1850) 708 The osselet in some Cephalopoda. 1862 ― Elem. Geol. 455 View reduced of the complete osselet of a Belemnite. |