Pl. fasciculi. [L. fasciculus, dim. of fascis: see FASCES.]
1. = FASCICLE 1; chiefly in scientific use.
1816. Kirby & Spence, Entomol. (1843), I. 344. These pale-blue fasciculi Mr. Blackwell found to proceed from two additional spinners.
1823. Scoresby, Jrnl. Whale Fishery, 77. Every spine consisted of a fasciculus of needles, so arranged as to form a tapering ray.
1836–7. Sir W. Hamilton, Metaph., xxxiv. (1859), II. 286. Our cognitions comprehend different fasciculi of notions.
1865. Daily Tel., 28 Oct., 4/6. To see Lord Palmerston … fumble with a fasciculus of papers.
1874. trans. Lommel’s Light, 20. Only a small conical fasciculus [of rays of light] traverses the aperture and forms upon the screen a small bright spot.
b. Bot. = FASCICLE 1 b.
1857. Henfrey, Bot., § 135. The fasciculus is a cymose collection of nearly sessile flowers, forming a dense flat-topped bunch, such as we see in the Sweet-William and other species of Dianthus.
1889. Wagstaffe, Mayne’s Med. Voc., Fasciculus, a handful, as of flowers, leaves, roots.
c. Anat. ‘A bundle of fibres, chiefly applied to nerve structures’ (Wagstaffe).
1713. Cheselden, Anat., Introd (1726), 3. Nerves are Fasciculi of cylindrical fibres.
1797. M. Baillie, Morb. Anat. (1807), 21. In the ventricles it shoots our processes among the fasciculi of the muscular fibres.
1881. St. George Jackson Mivart, The Cat, 125. Each fasciculus being furnished by a membranous envelope sent inwards from the sheath, or perimysium, which invests the whole muscle, except in the heart, where the fibres are naked.
2. = FASCICLE 2.
1844. Lingard, Anglo-Sax. Ch. (1858), I. vii. 281. He collected entire psalms of a similar tendency in eight separate fasciculi.
1872. Ellacombe, Ch. Bells Devon, vii. 161. An elegant folio fasciculus descriptive of the bell and shrine of S. Patrick, published at Belfast, 1850.
1880. Athenæum, 29 May, 695/3. We have received the first fasciculus of a new monthly periodical in Hebrew, bearing chiefly on the history of Talmudical literature.
