SPICULE

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does spicule mean? 

• SPICULE (noun)
  The noun SPICULE has 1 sense:

1. small pointed structure serving as a skeletal element in various marine and freshwater invertebrates e.g. sponges and corals

  Familiarity information: SPICULE used as a noun is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• SPICULE (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Small pointed structure serving as a skeletal element in various marine and freshwater invertebrates e.g. sponges and corals

Classified under:

Nouns denoting body parts

Synonyms:

spicule; spiculum

Hypernyms ("spicule" is a kind of...):

appendage; outgrowth; process (a natural prolongation or projection from a part of an organism either animal or plant)

 Context examples 

Out of this violence, a spicule is born.

(Scientists Uncover Origins of the Sun’s Swirling Spicules, NASA)

A biopsy involving the removal of a core tissue containing bone spicules and hematopoietic elements embedded in the marrow stroma.

(Bone marrow biopsy, NCI Thesaurus)

Spicules are transient, forming and collapsing over the course of just five to 10 minutes.

(Scientists Uncover Origins of the Sun’s Swirling Spicules, NASA)

A team of scientists has been working on this particular model for nearly a decade, trying again and again to create a version that would create spicules.

(Scientists Uncover Origins of the Sun’s Swirling Spicules, NASA)

Together, the spacecraft and telescope peer into the lower layers of the sun’s atmosphere, known as the interface region, where spicules form.

(Scientists Uncover Origins of the Sun’s Swirling Spicules, NASA)

Friction between ions and neutral particles heats the plasma even more, both in and around the spicules.

(Scientists Uncover Origins of the Sun’s Swirling Spicules, NASA)

There, they snap into spicules, releasing both plasma and energy.

(Scientists Uncover Origins of the Sun’s Swirling Spicules, NASA)

These are spicules, and despite their grass-like abundance, scientists didn’t understand how they form.

(Scientists Uncover Origins of the Sun’s Swirling Spicules, NASA)

The simulations indicate spicules could play a big role in energizing the sun’s atmosphere, by constantly forcing plasma out and generating so many Alfvén waves across the sun’s entire surface.

(Scientists Uncover Origins of the Sun’s Swirling Spicules, NASA)

But the scientists knew something was missing because they never saw spicules in the simulations.

(Scientists Uncover Origins of the Sun’s Swirling Spicules, NASA)