contractile
Americanadjective
adjective
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of contractile
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Their earlier work had shown that small contractile cells called pericytes tighten coronary capillaries during the early stages of ischemia, a condition that occurs when the heart muscle is deprived of oxygen-rich blood.
From Science Daily ● Mar. 4, 2026
Muscle strength is the maximum force that muscles can generate during a voluntary contraction, while twitch contractile refers to how a muscle responds to an electrical stimulus.
From Science Daily ● Jan. 13, 2024
In a paper published today in Nature, researchers report refashioning Photorhabdus’s syringe—called a contractile injection system—so that it can attach to human cells and inject large proteins into them.
From Scientific American ● Mar. 29, 2023
These animals possess a ring of muscles lining the dome of the body, which provides the contractile force required to swim through water.
From Textbooks ● Jan. 1, 2015
The walls of the veins are thinner than those of the arteries; they contain much less elastic and muscular tissue, and are, therefore, more flaccid and less contractile.
From Arteriosclerosis and Hypertension: with Chapters on Blood Pressure, 3rd Edition. by Louis Marshall Warfield
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
