corpuscles

[kawr-puh-suhl, -puhs-uhl]

noun

Biology. an unattached cell, especially of a kind that floats freely, as a blood or lymph cell.

Anatomy. a small mass or body forming a more or less distinct part, as the sensory receptors at nerve terminals.

Physical Chemistry. a minute or elementary particle of matter, as an electron, proton, or atom.

any minute particle.

Also, cor·pus·cule

[kawr-puhs-kyool] .

Origin:
1650–60; < Latin corpusculum, equivalent to corpus body + -culum -cle¹

Related forms

cor·pus·cu·lar

[kawr-puhs-kyuh-ler] , cor·pus·cu·lat·ed

[kawr-puhs-kyuh-ley-tid] , cor·pus·cu·lous, adjective

cor·pus·cu·lar·i·ty

[kawr-puhs-kyuh-lar-i-tee] , noun

in·ter·cor·pus·cu·lar, adjective

non·cor·pus·cu·lar, adjective

Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2012.
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Corpuscles is always a great word to know.

So is quincunx. Does it mean:

a fool or simpleton; ninny.

an arrangement of five objects, as trees, in a square or rectangle, one at each corner and one in the middle.

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American Heritage

Science Dictionary

corpuscle

(kôr'pə-səl) Pronunciation Key

Any of various cellular or small multicellular structures in the body, especially a red or white blood cell.
See particle.

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Matching Quote

"I am more and more convinced that the ant colony is not so much composed of separate individuals as that the colony is a sort of individual, and each ant like a loose cell in it. Our own blood stream, for instance, contains hosts of white corpuscles which differ little from free-swimming amoebae. When bacteria invade the blood stream, the white corpuscles, like the ants defending the nest, are drawn mechanically to the infected spot, and will die defending the human cell colony. I admit that the comparison is imperfect, but the attempt to liken the individual human warrior to the individual ant in battle is even more inaccurate and misleading. The colony of ants with its component numbers stands half way, as a mechanical, intuitive, and psychical phenomenon, between our bodies as a collection of cells with separate functions and our armies made up of obedient privates. Until one learns both to deny real individual initiative to the single ant, and at the same time to divorce one's mind from the persuasion that the colony has a headquarters which directs activity ... one can make nothing but pretty fallacies out of the polity of the ant heap."

-Donald Culross Peattie

corpuscles

cor·pus·cle