microspheren.
/ˈmʌɪkrə(ʊ)sfɪə/, U.S. /ˈmaɪkroʊˌsfɪ(ə)r/, /ˈmaɪkrəˌsfɪ(ə)r/ΚΠ
1875 tr. H. Curschmann in tr. H. W. von Ziemssen et al. Cycl. Pract. Med. II. 381 In the blood..he [sc. Zülzer] has demonstrated the microspheres.
2. Zoology. The proloculus of a microspheric foraminiferan shell. Also: a microspheric foraminiferan or its shell.
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1891 W. H. Dallinger Carpenter's Microscope xiv. 727 The ‘microsphere’ is followed by a larger number of chambers.
1898 A. Sedgwick Student's Text-bk. Zool. I. 9 The intervening stages between the zoospore, produced by the megalospheric form, and the microsphere.
1905 Proc. Royal Soc. B. 76 313 It is rarely possible to obtain an accurate measurement of a body so minute as the microsphere.
1945 M. F. Glaessner Princ. Micropalaeontol. iv. 58 Munier-Chalmas and Schlumberger described the dimorphism in Miliolidae and created the terms megalosphere for the large proloculum and microsphere for the small initial chamber.
1993 Jrnl. Eukaryotic Microbiol. 40 720/2 A surprisingly large number of the specimens sectioned..were microspheres.
3. A microscopic spherical particle, esp. of a protein, synthetic polymer, or silicon; esp. such a particle synthesized to contain a therapeutic or diagnostic agent.
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the world > matter > chemistry > atomic chemistry > [noun] > minute particles of matter
particlea1398
corpule?1541
corpusculum1653
corpuscle1660
corpuscule1816
microsphere1950
nanodiamond1991
1950 Proc. Royal Soc. A. 203 68 A powder of Pyrex glass microspheres.
1960 Science 22 July 204/2 A tendency to yield microspheres having diameters in a bacterial range is illustrated.
1965 R. S. Young in S. W. Fox Orig. Prebiological Syst. iv. 349 It is difficult to imagine that this phenomenon of microsphere formation, so easily demonstrable in the laboratory, did not occur in nature if there were a suitable accumulation of building blocks. Whether this had anything to do with the origin of the cell is purely speculative at this stage, but it is certainly suggestive.
1965 R. S. Young in S. W. Fox Orig. Prebiological Syst. iv. 354 The microsphere is a remarkably stable structure.
1974 Nature 10 May 177/1 About 100,000 microspheres 25 μm in diameter labelled with 46Sc were injected into the left ventricle over 30 s.
1991 Economist 5 Oct. 123/1 Another medical application is the creation of microscopic protein spheres filled with air... Microspheres..can be used to improve the quality of images taken with ultrasonic scanners.
This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, December 2001; most recently modified version published online March 2022).
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n.1875