1Biology A minute body or cell in an organism, especially a red or white cell in the blood of vertebrates.
‘It is composed of: red corpuscles, white cells, platelets, and blood plasma.’
‘For a time, all you can see are blurred shapes swimming around on a glass slide, then suddenly everything becomes clear and you are studying a blood corpuscle or a cancerous cell.’
‘But the result of the treatment can affect the blood corpuscles and may even cause death.’
‘Arterioles have a relatively thick muscular wall in comparison to their luminal diameter; the lumen of the smallest arterioles can accommodate about three to four red blood corpuscles.’
‘There was absolutely no way to cure it and the ill persons didn't show the distinct signs of the other kinds - no overproduction of white blood corpuscles, no attacks of high fever and no spleen tumors at all.’
1.1historical A minute particle regarded as the basic constituent of matter or light.
‘these subparticles at the center of an antimony corpuscle are fluid and volatile’
‘To explain some of his observations Newton had to argue that the corpuscles of light created waves in the aether.’
‘He argued that matter was composed of corpuscles which themselves were differently built up of different configurations of primary particles.’
‘Boyle reconciled the two aspects of his position by assuming that chemical corpuscles were composed of atoms at a deeper level.’
‘Neither Arago nor any other scientist could demonstrate that light must be either a stream of emitted corpuscles or a wave motion.’
‘He used the term corpuscles to describe the negatively charged particles that we now call electrons.’
Origin
Mid 17th century from Latin corpusculum ‘small body’, diminutive of corpus.
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