Zool. and Bot. [L. carīna keel.] Applied to various structures of the form of a keel or ridge; esp. a. the two petals forming the base of a papilionaceous corolla; b. the median ridge on the mericarp of an umbelliferous fruit; c. the median ridge on the sternum of birds; d. the dorsal single plate of the shell of Cinipedes; e. the vertebral column of an embryo. (Syd. Soc. Lex.)
1704. J. Harris, Lex. Techn., Carina, is a Term used … by the Anatomists for the first Rudiments of the intire Vertebræ, as they appear in a Chicken’s Embryo … because it is crooked in the form of the Keel of a Ship.
1774. Garden, in Phil. Trans., LXV. 104. This carina, or keel, is very distinguishable … by its thinness, its apparent laxness.
1828. Stark, Elem. Nat. Hist., II. 187. Dorsal carina prolonged and pointed.
1842. Gray, Struct. Bot. (1880), 185. In a Papilionaceous Corolla … the two anterior [petals] … partly cohering to form a prow-shaped body, the Carina or keel.
1869. Oliver, Elem. Bot., App. 304. Alæ roundish, converging, shorter than the compressed, curved carina.
1872. H. A. Nicholson, Palæont., 151. The compartment at the end of the shell where the animal thrusts out its cirrated limbs, is called the ‘carina.’
