pecten
Americannoun
-
Zoology, Anatomy.
-
a comblike part or process.
-
a pigmented vascular membrane with parallel folds suggesting the teeth of a comb, projecting into the vitreous humor of the eye in birds and reptiles.
-
-
any bivalve mollusk of the genus Pecten; scallop.
noun
-
a comblike structure in the eye of birds and reptiles, consisting of a network of blood vessels projecting inwards from the retina, which it is thought to supply with oxygen
-
any other comblike part or organ
-
any scallop of the genus Pecten, which swim by expelling water from their shell valves in a series of snapping motions
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of pecten
1350–1400; Middle English < Latin pecten comb, rake, scallop, pubes, akin to pectere, Greek pékein to comb, card
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:
There is no pecten, but the numerous hyaloid arteries which are found in the embryo represent it.
From Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 10, Slice 1 "Evangelical Church Conference" to "Fairbairn, Sir William" by Various
And day after day the creatures will grow more tame, the serpula will not dart back into his case when you approach, nor the pecten close his beautiful shell as your shadow passes over it.
From The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 02, No. 09, July, 1858 by Various
The Stellaria holostea is "lady's white petticoat," and the Scandix pecten is "old wife's darning-needles."
From The Folk-lore of Plants by Dyer, T. F. Thiselton (Thomas Firminger Thiselton)
The praegenital somite, VII PrG, is still present, but has lost its rudimentary appendages; go, the genital operculum, left half; Km, the left pecten; abp4 to abp7, the rudimentary appendages of the lung-sacs.
From Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 2, Slice 3 "Apollodorus" to "Aral" by Various
Many lizards have a vascular projection of the choroid into the vitreous, foreshadowing the pecten of birds and homologous with the processus falciformis of fishes.
From Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 10, Slice 1 "Evangelical Church Conference" to "Fairbairn, Sir William" by Various
I found shells embedded in limestone varying considerably in its hardness being sometimes very friable and the surface in some places presenting innumerable fragments of corallines, with pectens, spatangi, echini, ostrea and foraminifera.
From Three Expeditions into the Interior of Eastern Australia, Volume 2 by Mitchell, Thomas
We detached some blocks containing oysters eight inches in diameter, pectens, venuses, and lithophyte polypi.
From Personal Narrative of Travels to the Equinoctial Regions of America, During the Year 1799-1804 — Volume 3 by Humboldt, Alexander von
They brought off a good collection of pectens, clams, helmets, conchs, pearl-oysters, and large cowries, but the specimens were not very perfect.
From The Last Voyage to India and Australia, in the 'Sunbeam' by Pritchett, R. T. (Robert Taylor)
Only, this last contains a much greater variety of fossil remains, both animal and vegetable, consisting of lignites, oyster-shells, large pectens, operculites, and fragments of sea-urchins, polypi, &c.
From Rambles in the Islands of Corsica and Sardinia with Notices of their History, Antiquities, and Present Condition. by Forester, Thomas
The population was evidently ichthyophagous, to judge by the vast accumulations of shells of scallops, oysters, limpets, pectens, and other mollusca.
From Manners and Monuments of Prehistoric Peoples by D'Anvers, N.
In the very thickest strata of our freestone, and at considerable depths, well-diggers often find large scallops or pectines, having both shells deeply striated, and ridged and furrowed alternately.
From The Natural History of Selborne by White, Gilbert
In the very thickest strata of our freestone, and at considerable depths, well-diggers often find large scallops or pectines, having both shells deeply striated, and ridged and furrowed alternately.
From The Natural History of Selborne, Vol. 1 by Morley, Henry
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.
