a. and sb. [a. F. cristallin, in 15th c. cristalin, and its prototype L. crystallĭn-us, a. Gr. κρυστάλλιν-ος of crystal, f. κρύσταλλος crystal. The pronunciation (kristæ·lin), after Latin, is used by Milton, Gray, Shelley and Palgrave.] A. adj.
1. Consisting of or made of crystal; of the nature of crystal; = CRYSTAL a. 1.
1509. Hawes, Past. Pleas., XXXVIII. x. The cristallyne wyndowes of great bryghtnes.
1553. Eden, Treat. Newe Ind. (Arb.), 37. Cristallyne cuppes, and suche other iewelles.
1621–51. Burton, Anat. Mel., I. ii. I. ii. Besides those other heavens, whether they bee christalline or watery.
1660. Boyle, New Exp. Phys.-Mech., ix. 70. Small Receivers blown of Crystalline Glass.
1779. J. Moore, View Soc. Fr., II. lv. 57. Broad crystalline mirrors.
2. Clear and transparent like crystal.
c. 1440. Lydg., Secrees, 425. Wellys of philosophye, With Crystallyn sprynges.
a. 1529. Skelton, Poems, Agst. Garnesche, 99. I yave hym drynk … Of Eliconys waters crystallyne.
1607. Walkington, Opt. Glass, 1. The Sepias inkie humor does make turbulent the cristallinest fountaine.
1671. Milton, Samson, 541. Nor did the dancing ruby Sparkling, out-poured … Allure thee from the cool crystalline stream.
1742. Young, Nt. Th., vii. 555. A crystalline transparency prevails.
1821. Shelley, Hellas, 698. Built below the tide of war, Based on the crystalline sea.
1871. Palgrave, Lyr. Poems, 13. Queen of the crystalline lake.
b. fig.
1605. Bacon, Adv. Learn., II. xvii. 65. Rules … howe Chrystallyne they may bee made at the first.
1670. Eachard, Cont. Clergy, Pref. to Rdr. 4. An uncorruptible and pure Crystalline Church.
1857–8. Sears, Athan., xi. 91. A sermon … in which his crystalline style is even more than usually radiant with momentous truths.
3. Of the nature of a crystal; having a structure that is the result of crystallization.
1612. Woodall, Surg. Mate, Wks. (1653), 217. Sal Nitri is the Chrystalline salt purified from grosse Salt-peeter.
1665. Hooke, Microgr., 82. A multitude of little Crystalline or Adamantine bodies.
1799. Kirwan, Geol. Ess., 136. The crystalline grains are scarcely discernible.
1869. Roscoe, Elem. Chem., 178. Many naturally occurring minerals exhibit very perfect crystalline forms.
b. Of rocks: Composed of crystals or crystalline particles: opposed to amorphous.
1833. Lyell, Princ. Geol., III. 334. A more compact and crystalline texture, which will be considered when we speak of the strata termed ‘primary.’
1851. Ruskin, Stones Ven. (1874), I. viii. 81. The natural crystalline rocks.
4. Of or pertaining to crystals and their formation.
1833. Whewell, Astron. (Bridgew. Treat.), 77 (O.). Snow being apparently frozen vapour, aggregated by a confused action of crystalline laws.
1871. Tyndall, Fragm. Sc. (1879), II. iv. 51. The marvels of crystalline force.
5. Crystalline heaven (sphere, circle): in the Ptolemaic astronomical system, a sphere (later two spheres) supposed to exist between the primum mobile and the firmament, by means of which the precession of the equinox and the motion of libration were accounted for.
c. 1340. Richard Rolle of Hampole, Prick of Conscience, 7574. Ane other [heven] es, þat clerkes calles cristallyne, Þat next oboven þe sterned heven es.
1481. Caxton, Myrr., III. xxii. 184. Aboue this … ther is another heuene … lyke as it were of the colour of whyte crystall … And is called the heuen crystalyn.
1549. Compl. Scot., vi. 48. The nynte spere, callit the hauyn cristellyne.
1600. Fairfax, Tasso, IX. lx. 171. The mouer first and circle Christalline, The firmament, where fixed stars all shine.
1667. Milton, P. L., III. 482. They … pass the fixt, And that Crystalline Sphear whose ballance weighs The Trepidation talkt, and that first mov’d.
1796. Morse, Amer. Geog., I. 27. Above the starry sphere were imagined to be the two crystalline spheres.
1847. Ld. Lindsay, Chr. Art, I. p. xxxii. The crystalline, or ninth heaven, of pure ether.
6. Crystalline lens (formerly humour): a transparent body enclosed in a membranous capsule, situated immediately behind the iris of the eye; it is the principal agent by which rays of light are brought to a focus on the retina, and it plays an important part in the action of accommodation. Crystalline cones: the end organs of the apparatus of vision in the Arthropoda.
1398. Trevisa, Barth. De P. R., V. v. (1495), 109. The humour albugines in the eyen is more moyst thenne the humour cristallin.
1541. R. Copland, Guydon’s Quest. Chirurg. In the myddes of the eye is … humour crystallyn, by cause it is of colour of Crystall.
1615. Crooke, Body of Man, 33. The cristalline and glassy humors of the eye.
1794. G. Adams, Nat. & Exp. Philos., II. xvii. 265. The seat of this disorder [cataract] is in the crystalline lens.
1836–9. Todd, Cycl. Anat., II. 172/1. Within this hollow sphere … is fixed a double convex lens, called the crystalline lens or crystalline humour.
7. Crystalline style or stylet: a transparent rod-like body contained in a sac embedded in the liver of some lamellibranchiate mollusks.
1864. W. Houghton, in Intell. Observ., No. 32. 70. This body, called the crystalline style.
1866. Tate, Brit. Mollusks, ii. 14. A stomach, which contains a cylindrical jelly-like body, termed the crystalline style.
B. sb. [elliptical uses of the adj.]
1. The crystalline heaven: see A. 5. arch.
1413. Lydg., Pilgr. Sowle, V. i. (1859), 71. The entre, that is the Crystallyn, that yett is not ouerpassed.
1634. Habington, Castara (Arb.), 19. In a bright orbe beyond the Christalline.
1663. Cowley, Pindar. Odes, Ecstasie, ix. The Transparent Rocks o’ th’ Heav’nly Chrystalline.
1840. Mrs. Browning, Drama of Exile (1850), I. 6. What if I stand up And strike my brow against the crystalline Roofing the creatures.
2. The crystalline lens or humour: see A. 6.
[1597. Lowe, Chirurg. (1634), 142. The second and chiefe principall instrument of the sight is called cristalline.]
1657. W. Rand, trans. Gassendi’s Life Peiresc, II. 97. The Image which was inverted in the Retina, was found to be received by the Crystalline in its right posture.
1682. Sir T. Browne, Chr. Mor., 100. Behold thy self by inward opticks and the crystalline of thy soul.
1793. Young, in Phil. Trans., LXXXIII. 174. In the ox’s eye, the diameter of the crystalline is 700 thousandths of an inch.
1868. J. Duncan, Insect World, Introd 3. These cones … play the part of the crystalline, or lens, in the eyes of animals.
† 3. A venereal disease characterized by an outbreak of clear pustules; cf. CRYSTAL sb. 8. Obs.
1674. Butler, Hud. to Sidrophel, 51. Recovering Shankers, Chrystallines, And Nodes and Botches in their Rindes.
4. A crystal; a crystalline rock.
1856. Mrs. Browning, Sonn., Work. All thy tears … Like pure crystallines. Ibid., Sonn. from Portuguese, xv. On me thou lookest with no doubting care, As on a bee shut in a crystalline.
† 5. Chem. An obsolete name for ANILINE, called by its discoverer Unverdorben in 1826, crystallina.
1838. T. Thomson, Chem. Org. Bodies, 294 (heading), Of crystallina.
