peristalticadj.

1652 A. Ross Arcana Microcosmi ii. viii. 40 The expulsion of the Fæces is partly the natural or peristaltick motion of the intestines, and partly the voluntary motion of the muscles of the Abdomen.

1676 J. Evelyn Philos. Disc. Earth 170 For that Plants do more than obscurely respire, and exercise a kind of Peristaltic motion, I little doubt.

1727 J. Drake Anthropologia Nova (ed. 3) I. xi. 47 The Intestines... They have all of them in common a kind of Vermicular Motion, which..is call'd the Peristaltick Motion.

1753 N. Torriano Compendium Obstetricii 14 The inverting peristaltic Motion of the Fallopian Tube.

1804 Philos. Trans. (Royal Soc.) 94 18 Whether the peristaltic motions of the alimentary canal be influenced by the circuitous course of some of the arteries,..I am unable to determine.

1881 C. Darwin Form. Veg. Mould 116 When the earth was in a very liquid state it was ejected in little spurts, and when not so liquid by a slow peristaltic movement.

1939 T. L. Green Pract. Animal Biol. i. 62 Narcotize a cockroach and remove the wing cases... The peristaltic movements of the gut and the beating of the heart may be seen.

1976 M. Bishop And Strange at Ecbatan Trees iv. 22 Legend had it that the sloak, which moved in slow, vaguely peristaltic undulations, thickened itself consciously every two thousand years.

1987 M. S. Laverack & J. Dando Lect. Notes Invertebr. Zool. (ed. 3) ii. 19/1 Locomotion may be by swimming, slow gliding..or by peristaltic waves (euglenoids).

1856–7 W. Thomson in Proc. Royal Soc. 8 122 I..venture to introduce the term peristaltic to characterize that kind of induction by which currents are excited in elongated conductors through the variation of electrostatic potential in the surrounding matter.

1958 Science 11 July 94/1 (advt.) Newly designed scientific research tools..Peristaltic pumps.

1976 C. Culpin Farm Machinery (ed. 9) viii. 105/2 Liquid fertilizers are sometimes applied by means of a very simple type of ground-driven peristaltic pump (squeeze pump).

1989 G. Nicolis in P. Davies New Physics xi. 321/1 (caption) Three peristaltic pumps feed the reagents into the reactor.

1858 A. Farre in Todd's Cycl. Anat. & Physiol. V. 678/1 The food is propelled onwards peristaltically.

1917 Proc. Royal Soc. 1915–17 B. 89 570 The mammalian heart... The first plan of its construction is the plan of a simple tube contracting peristaltically from end to end.

1994 Harper's Mag. July 42/2 The main gate's maw admits us, and tightly packed the slow masses move peristaltically along complex systems of branching paths.