Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun The fluid-filled cavity within the body of most multicellular animals, except some invertebrates such as flatworms and cnidarians, that lies between the body wall and the digestive tract and is formed by the splitting of the embryonic mesoderm into two layers.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun zoology A fluid-filled
cavity within the body of ananimal . Thedigestive system issuspended within the cavity, which is lined by atissue called theperitoneum .
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun a cavity in the mesoderm of an embryo that gives rise in humans to the pleural cavity and pericardial cavity and peritoneal cavity
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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The same kind of coelom-formation as in sagitta was afterwards found by Kowalevsky in brachiopods and other invertebrates, and in the lowest vertebrate -- the amphioxus.
The Evolution of Man — Volume 1 Ernst Heinrich Philipp August Haeckel 1876
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Snails collect their metabolic wastes in the coelom - which has been reduced to a sac surrounding the heart.
Mollusca 2007
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I decided to see how other major dictionaries handle coelom.
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It's the adjective of coelom SEE-lum, which Merriam-Webster said is "the usually epithelium-lined space between the body wall and the digestive tract of metazoans above the lower worms," which told me basically nothing.
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Of these divisions of the coelom the first two communicate with the exterior by means of a pair of ciliated pore-canals placed at the posterior end of their respective segments.
Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 2 "Baconthorpe" to "Bankruptcy" Various
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There are reasons for supposing that the truncal coelom was at one time provided with pore-canals, but supposed vestiges of these structures have only been described for one genus, _Spengelia_, in which they lie near the anterior end of the truncal coelom.
Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 2 "Baconthorpe" to "Bankruptcy" Various
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Cardio-coelom: that part of the coelom that forms the pericardium.
Explanation of Terms Used in Entomology John. B. Smith
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In the direct development Bateson showed that the three divisions of the coelom arise as pouches constricted off from the archenteron or primitive gut, thus resembling the development of the mesoblastic somites of _Amphioxus_.
Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 2 "Baconthorpe" to "Bankruptcy" Various
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Dissepiment: a partition wall: applied to the forming septa separating the coelom-sacs in the embryo; also the thin envelope about the members in obtect pupae.
Explanation of Terms Used in Entomology John. B. Smith
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Coelom-sac: the cavity containing the viscera: in embryology one of a pair of closed sacs, arising in the mesoderm of each segment of the embryo and giving rise to more or less of the coelom of the adult.
Explanation of Terms Used in Entomology John. B. Smith
frogapplause commented on the word coelom
Snails collect their metabolic wastes in the coelom - which has been reduced to a sac surrounding the heart.
March 16, 2011
hernesheir commented on the word coelom
That's why love hurts frogapplause, for snails at least.
March 16, 2011