Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun The hard, siliceous bivalve shell of a diatom.
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun A small fragment.
- noun The silicious shell of a diatom; a testule.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun (Bot.) The siliceous shell of a diatom. It is composed of two valves, one overlapping the other, like a pill box and its cover.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun botany The
siliceous shell of adiatom .
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
[French, from Latin frūstulum, diminutive of frūstum, piece broken off.]
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
Latin frustulum, from frustum ("morsel").
Support
Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word frustule.
Examples
-
Electrodes were inserted through the frustule into the cytoplasmic rich nuclear region of the cell (photomicrograph inset, scale bar 20 µm).
PLoS ONE Alerts: New Articles Alison R. Taylor 2009
-
The approximately cyclindical cells (50-70 µm long by 20-40 µM in diameter) were impaled though the silica frustule aided by capacitance over compensation.
PLoS ONE Alerts: New Articles Alison R. Taylor 2009
Comments
Log in or sign up to get involved in the conversation. It's quick and easy.