contractibility

Rough and repulsive in appearance, and sluggish in habit, it has great power of contractibility.

The Confessions of a Beachcomber 2003

The four properties of irritability, contractibility, assimilation, and reproduction, belong to these vital units -- the cells, and it is these properties which we are trying to trace to their source as a foundation of vital activity.

The Story of the Living Machine A Review of the Conclusions of Modern Biology in Regard to the Mechanism Which Controls the Phenomena of Living Activity

But simple as it was it had all the fundamental properties of living things -- irritability, contractibility, assimilation, and reproduction.

The Story of the Living Machine A Review of the Conclusions of Modern Biology in Regard to the Mechanism Which Controls the Phenomena of Living Activity

This early sucking of the child accomplishes another purpose besides the obtaining of this important laxative -- it also reflexly increases the contractibility of the muscles of the womb, which is an exceedingly important service just at this time.

The Mother and Her Child William S. Sadler

Cells are endowed with the properties of irritability, contractibility, assimilation and reproduction, and it is thus plainly to the study of cells that we must look for an interpretation of life phenomena.

The Story of the Living Machine A Review of the Conclusions of Modern Biology in Regard to the Mechanism Which Controls the Phenomena of Living Activity

It may be argued, fairly, that this is only an incidental result of the extreme muscular irritability and contractibility of the organs, which might have been caused on Lamarckian as well as on the Darwinian hypothesis.

Alfred Russel Wallace Letters and Reminiscences Marchant, James 1916

Rough and repulsive in appearance, and sluggish in habit, it has great power of contractibility.

Confessions of a Beachcomber 1887

In the wasted bodies of those who have suffered starvation, the muscles are shrunk and unnaturally soft, and have lost their contractibility; all those parts of the body which were capable of entering into the state of motion have served to protect the remainder of the frame from the destructive influence of the atmosphere.

Familiar Letters on Chemistry Justus Freiherr von Liebig 1838

What is contractibility without muscular fibre, or secretion without a secreting gland?

What is Darwinism? Charles Hodge 1837

Wood made other major research contributions to gynaecology, previously the Cinderella of medical research, adding to knowledge of uterine contractibility, the psychological effects of hysterectomy, and the corpus luteum's role in ovulation and pregnancy.

The Guardian World News Caroline Richmond 2011