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r or property of contracting, or of shrinking into shorter or smaller dimensions; as, the contractile tissues. The heart's contractile force. H. Brooke. Each cilium seems to be composed of contractile substance. Hixley. Contractile vacuole (Zoöl.), a pulsating cavity in the interior of a protozoan, supposed to be excre…

A weakening or cessation of the contractile power of the heart.

Want of tone; weakness of the system, or of any organ, especially of such as are contractile.

A contractile cell or vesicle containing liquid pigment and capable of changing its form or size, thus causing changes of color in the translucent skin of such animals as possess them. They are highly developed and numerous in the cephalopods.

slightly flattened, nucleated cells, mainly protoplasmic in composition, and possessed of contractile power. In man, the average size is about 1/2500 of an inch, and they are present in blood in much smaller numbers than the red corpuscles.

A thin layer of peculiar contractile tissue directly beneath the skin of the scrotum.

The contractile membrane perforated by the pupil, and forming the colored portion of the eye. See Eye.

The contractile tissue of which muscles are largely made up.

A contractile striated layer found in the bodies and stems of certain Infusoria.

Any contractile vessel of invertebrates which is not of the nature of a real heart, especially one of those pertaining to the excretory system.

he continual regeneration of the epithelial cells of the body, or the regeneration of the contractile substance of muscle.

leaves or other organs opening into the intercellular spaces, and usually bordered by two contractile cells.

or a pellucid watery liquid, or some special chemical secretions of the cell protoplasm. Contractile vacuole. (Zoöl.) See under Contractile, and see Illusts. of Infusoria, and Lobosa. -- Food vacuole. (Zoöl.) See under Food, and see Illust. of Infusoria.

with a circle of vibrating cilia around the oral disk. Most of the species have slender, contractile stems, either simple or branched.