glomerulus
Americannoun
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a compact cluster of capillaries.
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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.
noun
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a knot of blood vessels in the kidney projecting into the capsular end of a urine-secreting tubule
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any cluster or coil of blood vessels, nerve fibres, etc, in the body
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of glomerulus
1855–60; < New Latin, equivalent to Latin glomer- (stem of glomus ) ball-shaped mass + -ulus -ule
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.
See Examples For:
Juxtamedullary nephrons have a larger glomerulus, allowing them to filter blood at a greater rate than cortical nephrons.
From Textbooks ● Jun. 9, 2022
Once the efferent arteriole exits the glomerulus, it forms the peritubular capillary network, which surrounds and interacts with parts of the renal tubule.
From Textbooks ● Jun. 9, 2022
The capillaries deliver blood to the glomerulus and run perpendicular to the proximal convoluted tubule.
From Textbooks ● Jun. 9, 2022
Juxtamedullary nephrons have a smaller glomerulus, allowing them to filter blood at a greater rate than cortical nephrons.
From Textbooks ● Jun. 9, 2022
Within the nephron the blood comes in intimate contact with the waste-collecting tubules in a structure called the glomerulus.
From Textbooks ● Apr. 25, 2013
It shows how much blood the glomeruli -- small vessels in the kidney tissue -- can filter per unit of time.
From Science Daily ● Feb. 7, 2024
The olfactory bulb is composed of neural clusters called glomeruli, and each glomerulus receives signals from one type of olfactory receptor, so each glomerulus is specific to one odorant.
From Textbooks ● Jun. 9, 2022
Health care workers typically assess how well someone’s kidneys work by starting with a blood test for the glomerular filtration rate, or G.F.R., an estimate of how much blood passes through the glomeruli every minute.
From New York Times ● Nov. 1, 2021
Martin’s glomeruli filtration rate - GFR, the rate that kidneys filter blood - fell to 41 by November 2018.
From Washington Times ● Jul. 23, 2019
The microscope shows small areas scattered throughout where the glomeruli are hyalinized, the stroma full of small round cells, the tubules dilated, and the cells are almost bare of protoplasm.
From Arteriosclerosis and Hypertension: with Chapters on Blood Pressure, 3rd Edition. by Warfield, Louis Marshall
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.
