Search the Dictionary

Capable of being drawn out in length; ductile. Bacon.

Having power to attract.

r 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 excretor…

Tending or serving to draw apart.

Not tractile; incapable of being drawn out or extended. Bacon.

Not retractile.

Capable of being protracted, or protruded; protrusile.

CApable of retraction; capable of being drawn back or up; as, the claws of a cat are retractile.

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.

ghtly 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.

animal of Madagascar (Cryptoprocta ferox). It resembles a cat in size and form, and has retractile claws.

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

An order of wormlike, degraded, parasitic arachnids. They have two pairs of retractile hooks, near the mouth. Called also Pentastomida.

The contractile tissue of which muscles are largely made up.

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

An extensive division of pectinibranchiate gastropods, including those that have a long retractile proboscis, with the mouth at the end, as the cones, whelks, tritons, and cowries. See Illust. of Gastropoda, and of Winkle.

Capable of being protruded or thrust out; protractile; protrusive.