Pl. -es. Also 7–8 apophyse. [a. Gr. ἀπόφυσις off-shoot, f. ἀπό from + φύσις growth. Cf. Fr. apophyse, also used in English in 17–18th c.]
1. Phys. A natural protuberance or process, arising from, and forming a continuous part of, a bone; esp. one of the processes on the spinal vertebræ.
1611. Cotgr., Procés … the Processe, Apophyse, or outstanding part of a bone.
1646. Sir T. Browne, Pseud. Ep., 18. Such [fish] as have the Apophyses of their spine made laterally like a combe.
1753. Phil. Trans., XLVIII. 32. The rocky apophyse of the ear bone.
1847–9. Todd, Cycl. Anat. & Phys., IV. 370/2. The paramastoid apophysis is dilated.
2. Bot. A dilatation of the base of the theca or spore-case in some mosses.
1794. Martyn, Rousseau’s Bot., xxxii. 493. A kind of receptacle … called by Linnæus Apophysis, by Haller the Disk.
1863. Berkeley, Brit. Mosses, iii. 22. In an early stage of growth … the apophysis belongs quite as much to the stem as the sporangium.
