pecten

American  

[pek-tuhn] / ˈpɛk tən /

noun

• pectens,
  plural
• pectines
  plural

1. Zoology, Anatomy.

   1. a comblike part or process.

   2. 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.

2. any bivalve mollusk of the genus Pecten; scallop.

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pecten British  

/ ˈpɛktɪn /

noun

1. 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

2. any other comblike part or organ

3. any scallop of the genus Pecten, which swim by expelling water from their shell valves in a series of snapping motions

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Other Word Forms

Noun Inflected Forms

• pectens
  plural
• pectines
  plural

Etymology

Origin of pecten

1350–1400; Middle English < Latin pecten comb, rake, scallop, pubes, akin to pectere, Greek pékein to comb, card

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

pecten pectens pectines

No body-pile or pecten ever grows upon the excoriated part which preserves through life a livid ashen hue.

From The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night — Volume 12 [Supplement] by Sir Richard Francis Burton

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 T. F. Thiselton (Thomas Firminger Thiselton) Dyer

From near the entrance of the optic nerve, through the original choroidal fissure, arises the much-folded pecten, deeply pigmented and very vascular, far into the vitreous humour.

From Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Slice 7 "Bible" to "Bisectrix" by Various

"Sha'r," properly, hair of body, pile, especially the pecten.

From The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night — Volume 09 by Sir Richard Francis Burton

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 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 N. D'Anvers

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 Alexander von Humboldt

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 Thomas Forester

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 R. T. (Robert Taylor) Pritchett

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 Thomas Mitchell

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 Henry Morley

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 Gilbert White