primitive cell

American  

noun

Crystallography.

1. a unit cell containing no points of the lattice except at the corners of the cell.

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Etymology

Origin of primitive cell

First recorded in 1930–35

Example Sentences

As it began to divide, cancer genes took over and the single primitive cell barreled forward into a massive tumor.

From New York Times • Jan. 28, 2016

Jack Szostak and his colleagues at Harvard Medical School in Boston have taken a different approach, enclosing RNA molecules in fatty-acid vesicles as an early step towards the creation of a primitive cell.

From Nature • Mar. 28, 2012

The original smart mobs were teenage "thumb tribes" in Tokyo and Helsinki who punched out short, cheap text messages on primitive cell phones to organize impromptu raves or to stalk their favorite celebrities.

From Time Magazine Archive

This office was a miserable hole on the ground floor, with iron gratings at the two small windows; an infectious and primitive cell, that already stunk of the great empire.

From The Patriot Piccolo Mondo Antico by Fogazzaro, Antonio

This signifies that, as embryos, we repeat in an abridged form the series of types or morphological stages through which has passed the series of our animal ancestors, from the primitive cell to man.

From The Sexual Question A Scientific, psychological, hygienic and sociological study by Forel, Auguste