Webster
✕

Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary · 1913

Nucleus

Nu′cle·us, n.; pl. E. Nucleuses (#), L. Nuclei (#). [L., a kernel, dim. fr. nux, nucis, nut. Cf. Newel post.]

1. A kernel; hence, a central mass or point about which matter is gathered, or to which accretion is made; the central or material portion; — used both literally and figuratively.

It must contain within itself a nucleus of truth. I. Taylor.

2. (Astron.) The body or the head of a comet.

3. (Bot.) (a) An incipient ovule of soft cellular tissue. (b) A whole seed, as contained within the seed coats.

4. (Biol.) A body, usually spheroidal, in a cell or a protozoan, distinguished from the surrounding protoplasm by a difference in refrangibility and in behavior towards chemical reagents. It is more or less protoplasmic, and consists of a clear fluid (achromatin) through which extends a network of fibers (chromatin) in which may be suspended a second rounded body, the nucleolus (see Nucleoplasm). See Cell division, under Division.

☞ The nucleus is sometimes termed the endoplast or endoblast, and in the protozoa is supposed to be concerned in the female part of the reproductive process. See Karyokinesis.

5. (Zoöl.) (a) The tip, or earliest part, of a univalve or bivalve shell. (b) The central part around which additional growths are added, as of an operculum. (c) A visceral mass, containing the stomach and other organs, in Tunicata and some mollusks.

Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Noah Porter, editor (Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913). Public domain. Text as transcribed by MICRA, Inc., from Project Gutenberg. Changed for Deep Dive Bible: Greek, which our source spelled in Latin letters, set in Greek letters; entries of one spelling merged into one article; Greek words our source left out (shown as “?”), read from the 1898 printing, from the same plates (the Library of Congress’s copy), where the place could be found with certainty. Of the others, 1,362 (a word or a single letter each) were inferred by AI from the context by the dictionary’s own rules and are marked with a wavy underline (tap or point at one to see the note); the rest, which could not be inferred with confidence, are left as “?”.