a. & sb. [ad. mod.L. cellulōs-us, f. cellula, CELLULE.]
A. adj. Consisting of an aggregate of ‘cells’ or small cavities; full of minute cavities.
1753. [see CELLULAR 3.]
1755. Manduit, in Phil. Trans., XLIX. 206. The base is of a stiffer and more cellulose texture.
1854. Woodward, Mollusca, II. 241. One small modiola makes its hole in the cellulose tunic of Ascidians.
B. sb. [a. F. cellulose.] One of the AMYLOSES. A substance, also called lignin, which constitutes the essential part of the solid framework of plants, and occurs to some extent in the animal body. It is amorphous, tasteless, inodorous, absolutely innutritious, insoluble in water, alcohol, ether, dilute acids, and alkalis. The name, introduced by Payen, has become the type of the other chemical terms in -OSE. Also attrib., as in cellulose wall.
1835. Lindley, Introd. Bot. (1848), I. 6. The organic basis of the elementary organs is called cellulose.
1869. Roscoe, Elem. Chem. (1874), 403. Gun Cotton … is a substitution product, being cellulose in which three atoms of hydrogen are replaced by NO2, and is called trinitro-cellulose.
1875. Darwin, Insectiv. Pl., vi. 125. The gastric juice of animals does not attack cellulose.
1877. Watts, Fownes’ Chem., II. 207. Cellulose … in fine linen and cotton, which are almost entirely composed of it.
1882. Vines, Sachs’ Bot., 13. In the cell-plates cellulose walls are now formed.
Hence Cellulosic, of the nature of cellulose.
1881. Nature, XXV. 168. Cellulosic substances in their different isomeric states.
