CAPILLARY • E-FREE TRANSLATION.COM • Definition of Capillary

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/kˈæpəlˌɛri/ Listen

adjective

Capillary adj.

1.

Resembling a hair; fine; minute; very slender; having minute tubes or interspaces; having very small bore; as, the capillary vessels of animals and plants.

2.

Pertaining to capillary tubes or vessels; as, capillary action.

Capillary attraction, Capillary repulsion, the apparent attraction or repulsion between a solid and liquid caused by capillarity. See Capillarity, and Attraction.

Capillarity tubes. See the Note under Capillarity.

noun

Capillary n. (pl. capillaries)

1.

A tube or vessel, extremely fine or minute.

2.

(Anat.) A minute, thin-walled vessel; particularly one of the smallest blood vessels connecting arteries and veins, but used also for the smallest lymphatic and biliary vessels.

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Etymology of 'Capillary'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Capillary" Quotes from Famous Books

... It is in the capillaries, which are all over the body, that this change takes place. The blood-vessels that convey the pure blood from the heart, divide into myriads of little branches that terminate in capillary vessels like those lining the air-cells of the lungs. The blood meanders through these minute capillaries, depositing the oxygen taken from the lungs and the food of the stomach, and receiving in return the decayed matter, which is chiefly ...

— The American Woman's Home • Catherine E. Beecher and Harriet Beecher Stowe

... also shown conclusively that alcohol paralyzes the minute capillary vessels, so that while the blood is forced into them through the arteries by the heart, it does not flow out of these minute vessels into the veins as rapidly as it does during their healthy action; consequently these vessels are congested and unnaturally distended with blood; the ...

— Personal Experience of a Physician • John Ellis

... cold winter day! The necessity of backing out of the royal presence! The idea of a freeborn Briton having to get out of an engagement long previously formed on the score that "he has been commanded to dine with H.R.H." The horrible capillary plaster necessary before a man can serve decently as an opener of carriage-doors! The horsehair envelopes without which our legal brains cannot work! The unwritten law by which a man has to nurse his hat and stick throughout a call unless his hostess specially ...

— The Land of Contrasts - A Briton's View of His American Kin • James Fullarton Muirhead

... might expect from a creek bank, is better. The effect of water near the surface depends also upon the character of the soil, being far more dangerous in the case of a heavy clay soil than in the case of a light loam, through which water moves more readily and does not rise so far or so rapidly by capillary action. If the trees are thrifty they will bear when they attain a sufficient age and stop the riotous growth which is characteristic of young trees with abundant moisture. If trees have too much water for their health, it will be manifested by the rotting of their roots, the dying of their branches, ...

— One Thousand Questions in California Agriculture Answered • E.J. Wickson

... the flame get hold of the fuel? There is a beautiful point about that—capillary attraction[4]. "Capillary attraction!" you say,—"the attraction of hairs." Well, never mind the name: it was given in old times, before we had a good understanding of what the real power was. It is by what is called capillary attraction that the fuel is conveyed to the part where combustion goes ...

— The Chemical History Of A Candle • Michael Faraday

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