metachronousadj.

1903 Amer. Naturalist 37 628 The synchronous reflexes are such complex movements of multiple phases as exhibit a rhythm; the metachronous are chain reflexes in which each step serves as a stimulus for the next.

1926 G. N. Calkins Biol. Protozoa iii. 152 The synchronous and metachronous vibrations of cilia.

1939 R. R. Kudo Protozool. 108 (caption) Metachronous movements of cilia in a longitudinal row.

1981 Proc. Royal Soc. B. 212 219 Examination of the stepping pattern in both abdominal exopodites and thoracic exopodites during undisturbed forward locomotion shows that it has the regular order characteristic of a metachronous rhythm.

1999 European Arch. Oto-rhino-laryngol. 256 335 An increase in viscoelasticity of the mucus.., together with a reduction in the periciliary stratum,..slows down the metachronous wave of the MCT [= mucociliary transport].

1939 I. P. Gerasimov & K. K. Markov in Trudy Inst. Geogr. Akad. Nauk SSSR 33 447 The second great regularity in the opinion of the authors was the non-concurrent or metachronous development of ice sheets in various parts of the vast territory of the USSR.

1957 Proc. Royal Soc. B. 147 354 It has clearly become a matter of fundamental importance to decide whether the [pollen] zone boundaries (and therefore the vegetational changes) are indeed synchronous or metachronous in given territories.

1968 Proc. 7th Congr. Internat. Assoc. Quaternary Res. VIII. 437 The earliest postglacial transgressional shorelines..form a metachronous series from north to south.

1984 J. J. Lowe & M. J. C. Walker Reconstructing Quaternary Environments ii. 25 Former ice limits..are more likely to have been metachronous than synchronous.

1941 S. Peller in Amer. Jrnl. Hygiene 34 1 (title) Metachronous multiple malignancies in 5,876 cancer patients.

1954 Stedman's Med. Dict. (ed. 18) Metachronous, occurring in sequence but separated by appreciable intervals.

1967 Proc. Royal Soc. Med. 60 209/2 None of the cases of metachronous cancer shows any association with ulcerative colitis.

1984 Amer. Surgeon 50 469 40 per cent of patients had synchronous or metachronous development of aneurysms in other locations.

1999 Amer. Jrnl. Hematol. 62 144 Four patients with Hodgkin's disease were diagnosed with metachronous non-Hodgkin's lymphoma as a second malignant neoplasm.

1926 G. N. Calkins Biol. Protozoa iii. 145 Cilia of the same transverse rows beating synchronously, those of the same longitudinal rows metachronously.

1987 M. S. Laverack & J. Dando Lect. Notes Invertebr. Zool. (ed. 3) xxiii. 122/2 Many groups of arthropods move by..using many limbs..metachronously synchronized.