A bag or sac in animals, which serves as the receptacle of some fluid; as, the urinary bladder; the gall bladder; -- applied especially to the urinary bladder, either within the animal, or when taken out and inflated with air.
Any vesicle or blister, especially if filled with air, or a thin, watery fluid.
A distended, membranaceous pericarp.
Anything inflated, empty, or unsound. "To swim with bladders of philosophy." Rochester. Bladder nut, or Bladder tree (Bot.), a genus of plants (Staphylea) with bladderlike seed pods. -- Bladder pod (Bot.), a genus of low herbs (Vesicaria) with inflated seed pods. -- Bladdor senna (Bot.), a genus of shrubs (Colutea), with membranaceous, inflated pods. -- Bladder worm (Zoöl.), the larva of any species of tapeworm (Tænia), found in the flesh or other parts of animals. See Measle, Cysticercus. -- Bladder wrack (Bot.), the common black rock weed of the seacoast (Fucus nodosus and F. vesiculosus) -- called also bladder tangle. See Wrack.
To swell out like a bladder with air; to inflate. [Obs.] G. Fletcher.
To put up in bladders; as, bladdered lard.
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