a. [f. as prec. + -LIKE.] Like a thread; also, like that of a thread.
1774. Mrs. Delany, in Life & Corr., Ser. II. (1862), II. 47. A litile brassish, copperish, goldish thread-like stuff adhering to a bit of slate or coal.
1814. Southey, Roderick, XVII. 50. The stream’s perpetual flow … with its … Dimples and thread-like motions infinite.
1835–6. Todd’s Cycl. Anat., I. 604/1. Cellular tissue formed of white thread-like filaments.
1901. Scribner’s Mag., XXIX. 433/2. Ridges over which the white tracks wind, thread-like, toward the hazy rim of mountains.
b. Of the pulse: = THREADY 4.
a. 1829. in Good’s Study Med. (1829), II. 612. Difficulty of swallowing; thread-like pulse.
1897. Allbutt’s Syst. Med., II. 818. The heart’s action becomes extremely feeble, and the pulse threadlike and uncountable. Ibid., IV. 389. It may be found that a pulsation of thread-like smallness will pass in spite of almost any pressure which the finger can apply.
