Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • intransitive verb To unite (blood vessels, nerve fibers, or ducts) by small openings.
  • intransitive verb To make continuous; blend.
  • intransitive verb To open into one another.
  • intransitive verb To unite so as to be continuous; blend.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • To unite by openings, as two vessels in an animal body; anastomose.
  • In anatomy, to unite by little openings; have intercommunication by running together, as the vessels of the body; anastomose: as, one vein or artery inosculates with another.
  • Hence To unite or be connected so as to have intercommunication or continuity; run together; blend by being connected terminally.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • transitive verb To unite by apposition or contact, as two vessels in an animal body.
  • transitive verb To unite intimately; to cause to become as one.
  • intransitive verb To unite by apposition or contact, as two tubular vessels at their extremities; to anastomose.
  • intransitive verb To intercommunicate; to interjoin.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • verb transitive to homogenize; to make continuous
  • verb intransitive to open into
  • verb to unite
  • noun the act of inosculating

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • verb come together or open into each other
  • verb cause to join or open into each other by anastomosis

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[in– + Latin ōsculāre, ōsculāt-, to provide with an opening (from ōsculum, diminutive of ōs, mouth; see ōs- in Indo-European roots).]

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Examples

  • Eiseley's point is pretty clear cut, whatever the case with the word 'inosculate'.

    Darwiniana 2010

  • The actual point of confluence of these two rivers, the Chobe and the Leeambye, is ill defined, on account of each dividing into several branches as they inosculate; but when the whole body of water collects into one bed, it is a goodly sight for one who has spent many years in the thirsty south.

    Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa 2004

  • The two circumflex humeri alone send down branches to inosculate with the small muscular offsets from the middle of the brachial artery.

    Surgical Anatomy Joseph Maclise

  • As this vessel gives off throughout its whole length, numerous branches which inosculate principally with the scapular, mammary, and superior intercostal branches of the subclavian, it will be evident that, in tying it above its own branches, the anastomotic circulation will with much greater freedom be maintained in respect to the arm, than if the ligature be applied below those branches.

    Surgical Anatomy Joseph Maclise

  • The subjects themselves so inosculate, that it would be strange indeed if the writers should not occasionally encroach upon each other's province; but even this, from the variety of argument, and mode of illustration, will be found interesting.

    Cotton is King, and Pro-Slavery Arguments Comprising the Writings of Hammond, Harper, Christy, Stringfellow, Hodge, Bledsoe, and Cartrwright on This Important Subject E. N. [Editor] Elliott

  • Designated parts otherwise unnamed; as, the innominate artery, a great branch of the arch of the aorta; the innominate vein, a great branch of the superior vena cava. inosculate

    Surgical Anatomy Joseph Maclise

  • The middle section is a simple ventricle, and the hindmost, the section turned towards the dorsal side, into which the vitelline veins inosculate, is a simple auricle (or atrium).

    The Evolution of Man — Volume 2 Ernst Heinrich Philipp August Haeckel 1876

  • They inosculate; they severally send off and receive connecting growths; and the intercommunion has been ever becoming more frequent, more intricate, more widely ramified.

    Essays on Education and Kindred Subjects Everyman's Library Herbert Spencer 1861

  • Clark's river, some branches of which inosculate with the mighty Missouri on the east.

    John B. Wyeth's Oregon, or a Short History of a Long Journey John Bound 1833

  • At the same time as all the vessels of the different buds of trees inosculate or communicate with each other, the fruit becomes sweeter and larger when the green leaves continue on the tree, but the mature flowers themselves, (the succeeding fruit not considered) perhaps suffer little injury from the green leaves being taken off, as some florists have observed.

    The Botanic Garden A Poem in Two Parts. Part 1: the Economy of Vegetation Erasmus Darwin 1766

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