Pl. -ula. [L.; dim. of corpus body; formerly used instead of CORPUSCLE; also in It. form corpusculo, and with incorrect pl. in -a’s.]
1. = CORPUSCLE 1.
1650. Bulwer, Anthropomet., i. (1653), 71. Cacexicate their petty Corpusculums.
1674. Petty, Disc. Dupl. Proportion, Introd. A v. Atoms (such, whereof perhaps a Million do not make up one visible Corpusculum).
1721. R. Bradley, Wks. Nat., 154. Such Effluvia or Corpuscula’s, as rise from the Earth or Waters.
1823. Lamb, Elia, Ser. I. xxi. (1865), 166. The agreeable levities … the twinkling corpuscula which should irradiate a right friendly epistle.
b. Bot. (pl.) The central cells of the archegonia of Gymnosperms, within which the germinal vesicles are produced: so named by R. Brown who discovered them in 1834.
1844. R. Brown, Annals Nat. Hist., XIII. 373. My areolæ or corpuscula, which he denominates large cells in the embryo-sac or albumen.
1875. Bennett & Dyer, trans. Sachs’ Bot., 434.
† 2. A small body of men; a small ecclesiastical body. Obs.
1653. Gauden, Hierasp., Pref. to Rdr. 11. Inamoured with their (Corpusculo’s) the little new bodies of their gathered Churches. Ibid. (1659), Tears of Church, 43. These new corpusculas of separate churches.
