[L. fūniculus, dim. of fūnis rope.]

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  † 1.  A little rope. Obs. rare0

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1706.  in Phillips (ed. Kersey).

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  † 2.  A hypothetical ‘string’ or filament of extremely rarefied matter, imagined to be the agent operating in the suspension of the mercury in the Torricellian experiment. Obs.

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  The hypothesis was propounded by Franciscus Linus (the Jesuit F. Line or Hall) in his book De Corporum Inseparabilitate, 1661, which attempts to refute the correct explanation of the phenomenon that had been given by Boyle.

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1662.  Boyle, Spring of Air, II. i. (1682), 18. That the things we ascribe to the weight or spring of the air are really performed by neither, but by a certain Funiculus, or extremely thin substance provided by Nature … which … does violently attract bodies whereunto it is contiguous if they be not too heavy to be removed by it. Ibid. (1669), Contn. New Exp., I. (1682), 5. Who attribute the suspension of the Quicksilver in the Torricellian experiment to a certain rarified matter, which some call a Funiculus.

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  3.  The umbilical cord; = FUNIS. Hence transf. in Bot. A little stalk by which a seed or ovule is attached to the placenta.

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1830.  Lindley, Nat. Syst. Bot., 111. Ovules ascending from the axis, attached to a short funiculus.

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1854.  Mayne, Exp. Lex., Funiculus, a name for the umbilical cord.

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1870.  Bentley, Bot., 326. The funiculus is parallel to the ovule, instead of being at right angles to it.

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1882.  Vines, Sachs’ Bot., 492. The nucellus … is seated on a stalk, the Funiculus.

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  4.  Ent. ‘A term for the part of the antenna which lies between the scape and the club in certain insects’ (Syd. Soc. Lex.).

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1877.  Sir C. W. Thomson, Voy. ‘Challenger,’ I. iv. 262. Lamellar appendage of the outer antenna reaching to the middle of the second joint of the funiculus.

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  5.  Anat. ‘Applied to the primitive cord or bundle of nerve fibres, bound together in a sheath of connective tissue, called the perineurium or neurilemma’ (Syd. Soc. Lex).

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  6.  In Polyzoa. (See quot.)

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1877.  Huxley, Anat. Inv. Anim., viii. 455. Very generally, the gastric division of the alimentary canal is connected with the parietes of the body by a sort of ligament, the funiculus, or gastro-parietal band.

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