myelocyte
(ˈmaɪələʊsaɪt)
[f. myelo- + -cyte.]
1. The nucleus of a ganglionic nerve-cell.
| 1866 A. Flint Princ. Med. 51 Myeolocytes [sic], or cells found in the substance of the brain, the spinal cord, and in one of the beds of the retina. 1889 Nature 21 Nov. 72/1 The nervous elements termed myelocytes. |
2. A cell generally confined to the bone marrow (appearing in the circulating blood only in pathological states) which is smaller than the myeloblast from which it derives, which when mature has neutrophil, eosinophil, and basophil cytoplasmic granules, and which is the precursor of the polymorphonuclear leucocyte of the circulating blood.
| 1891 Johns Hopkins Hosp. Bull. II. 87/1 These elements seem never to acquire the power of amoeboid movement which the polynuclear cells possess. They appear to arise in the marrow and have been called by Ehrlich ‘myelocytes’. 1911 [see myeloblast]. 1962 Gray's Anat. (ed. 33) 65 Myeloblasts divide and give rise to smaller cells, the myelocytes. 1968 Passmore & Robson Compan. Med. Studies I. xxvi. 12/1 The myelocyte is a smaller cell with a round nucleus. |
So myeloˈcytic a., of, pertaining to, or involving myelocytes.
| 1896 Boston Med. & Surg. Jrnl. 2 Jan. 6/1 The shape of the myelocytic nucleus..is generally to be contrasted with that of the ‘polynuclear’ cell. 1972 Science 20 Oct. 304/1 Tumor cells derived from patients with both acute lymphocytic and acute myelocytic leukemia. |