glomerulus

American  

[gloh-mer-yuh-luhs, gluh-] / gloʊˈmɛr jə ləs, glə- /

noun

Anatomy.

glomeruli plural

1. a compact cluster of capillaries.

2. Also called Malpighian tuft.  a tuft of convoluted capillaries in the nephron of a kidney, functioning to remove certain substances from the blood before it flows into the convoluted tubule.

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glomerulus British  

/ ɡlɒˈmɛrʊləs /

noun

1. a knot of blood vessels in the kidney projecting into the capsular end of a urine-secreting tubule

2. any cluster or coil of blood vessels, nerve fibres, etc, in the body

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glomerulus Scientific  

/ glō-mĕr′yə-ləs /

glomeruli plural

1. A knot of highly permeable capillaries located within the Bowman's capsule of a nephron. Waste products are filtered from the blood in the glomerulus, initiating the process of urine formation.

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Other Word Forms

Derived Forms

• glomerular
  adjective

Inflected Forms

Nouns

• glomeruli
  plural

Etymology

Origin of glomerulus

1855–60; < New Latin, equivalent to Latin glomer- (stem of glomus ) ball-shaped mass + -ulus -ule