Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun Zoology A mass of strong, silky filaments by which certain bivalve mollusks, such as mussels, attach themselves to rocks and other fixed surfaces.
- noun A fine-textured linen of ancient times, used by the Egyptians for wrapping mummies.
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun Among the ancients, originally, a fine yellowish flax, especially Indian and Egyptian, and the linen made from it, such as the Egyptian mummy-cloth; afterward, also, cotton and silk (the latter, before its origin was known, being taken for a kind of cotton).
- noun One of the byssi, a name formerly given by botanists to a heterogeneous collection of filamentous cryptogamic plants.
- noun In conchology, a long, delicate, lustrous, and silky bunch of filaments, secreted by the foot, and serving as a means of attachment to other Objects.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun A cloth of exceedingly fine texture, used by the ancients. It is disputed whether it was of cotton, linen, or silk.
- noun (Zoöl.) A tuft of long, tough filaments which are formed in a groove of the foot, and issue from between the valves of certain bivalve mollusks, as the
Pinna andMytilus , by which they attach themselves to rocks, etc. - noun (Bot.) An obsolete name for certain fungi composed of slender threads.
- noun Asbestus.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun An exceptionally fine and valuable fibre or cloth of ancient times. Originally used for fine flax and linens, its use was later extended to fine cottons, silks, and sea silk.
- noun The long fine silky
filaments excreted by severalmollusks (particularly Pinna nobilis) by which they attach themselves to thesea bed , from whichsea silk is manufactured. - noun The
stipe orstem of somefungi which are particularly thin and thread-like.
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun tuft of strong filaments by which e.g. a mussel makes itself fast to a fixed surface
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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Mussels anchor themselves in the inter-tidal zone by means of a thatch of tough proteinaceous fibers called the byssus, or “beard.”
On Food and Cooking, The Science and Lore of the Kitchen Harold McGee 2004
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Mussels anchor themselves in the inter-tidal zone by means of a thatch of tough proteinaceous fibers called the byssus, or “beard.”
On Food and Cooking, The Science and Lore of the Kitchen Harold McGee 2004
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These strategically placed threads form a bundle called the byssus, which tethers the mussel to its new home in much the same way that guy ropes hold down a tent.
WN.com - Articles related to Sea secrets - over 5,000 new marine species found 2010
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These strategically placed threads form a bundle called the byssus, which tethers the mussel to its new home in much the same way that guy ropes hold down a tent.
WN.com - Articles related to Sea secrets - over 5,000 new marine species found 2010
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These strategically placed threads form a bundle called the byssus, which tethers the mussel to its new home in much the same way that guy ropes hold down a tent.
WN.com - Articles related to Sea secrets - over 5,000 new marine species found 2010
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The illustration shows a rare species, several specimens of which were found attached to the mooring-chain of a buoy by what is known as the "byssus," a bunch of tough fibres which passes through an hiatus in the margins of the valves.
Tropic Days 1887
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Then comes a period of rest, obtained by using the long thread or 'byssus' (B) as a float, this thread being thrown out along the surface of the water.
Chatterbox, 1906 Various 1873
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In large part, moving food along the alimentary tract is a matter of smooth muscle functioning, and Pavlov decided to investigate the byssus retractor, the smooth muscle that Mytilus edulis, the common mussel, uses to close its shell.
MANUFACTURING DEPRESSION Gary Greenberg 2010
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In Ave byssus castitatis, up to the last line the words are in alphabetical order.
Archive 2009-06-01 Lu 2009
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The byssus is unknown to us, but the stuffs of Lyons are more valuable.
Prolagus commented on the word byssus
Chiara Vigo, from Sant'Antioco, Sardinia, manufacturer of byssus cloth.
November 22, 2010
ruzuzu commented on the word byssus
"Sea silk sounds like the stuff of legend. Harvested from rare clams, this thread flashes gold in the sunlight, weighs almost nothing, and comes with a heavy load of misunderstanding, misinterpretation, and misinformation. But the fiber itself is no myth. Its flaxen strands come from Pinna nobilis, or the pen shell, a giant Mediterranean mollusk that measures up to a yard in length. To attach themselves to rocks or the seafloor, some clams secrete proteins that, upon contact with seawater, harden into a silky filament called byssus. The byssus of the pen shell makes sea silk, the world’s rarest thread."
-- http://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/sea-silk-rarest-thread-italy-clams-textiles-fabric
September 14, 2017