cilia
Americanplural noun
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Biology. minute hairlike organelles, identical in structure to flagella, that line the surfaces of certain cells and beat in rhythmic waves, providing locomotion to ciliate protozoans and moving liquids along internal epithelial tissue in animals.
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Anatomy. the eyelashes.
noun
Etymology
Origin of cilia
1705–15; New Latin, plural of cilium eyelash, Latin: upper eyelid, perhaps a back formation from supercilium eyebrow; see supercilium
Example Sentences
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See Examples For:
By combining high speed imaging with three dimensional reconstructions of more than 1,000 cells, the researchers showed how networks of fused neurons coordinate the beating of cilia on different parts of the animal's body.
From Science Daily ● Mar. 6, 2026
Previous studies had found that a few cell cycle proteins, called cyclins, were active during cilia growth, as well as centrioles, which anchor the two sets of chromosomes during cell division.
From Science Daily ● Jun. 6, 2024
They captured them at different stages of maturity, hoping to glimpse the genetic instructions it takes to grow cilia and found a pattern that looked like the cell cycle.
From Science Daily ● Jun. 6, 2024
To do that, the researchers first embed the cilia in ice, which fixes all of the cilia in the desired direction.
From Science Daily ● Apr. 24, 2024
His cilia are not cilia at all, but individual spirochetes, and at the base of attachment of each spirochete is an oval organelle, embedded in the myxotricha membrane, which is a bacterium.
From "The Lives of a Cell" by Lewis Thomas
Scientists have long known that abnormalities in a structure on kidney cells, or the primary cilium, cause cysts to form in kidneys.
From Science Daily ● Apr. 8, 2024
The reason for this daytime-induced enhanced healing process appears to be from the relationship the 24-hour cycle has on the length of the primary cilium.
From Science Daily ● Dec. 21, 2023
Running a low positive voltage through a cilium triggers a chemical reaction: as a droplet of test fluid flows past, the electrified platinum breaks apart the water molecules within the droplet.
From Scientific American ● Jul. 11, 2022
They also have a single, nonmotile cilium that responds to the rate of fluid movement in the tubule.
From Textbooks ● Jun. 19, 2013
The inner layer or endoderm is also a cellular layer, and is chiefly made up of columnar cells, each bearing a cilium at its free extremity and terminating internally in a long muscular fibre.
From Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 2, Slice 2 "Anjar" to "Apollo" by Various
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.
