anastomoses

Noun

anastomosis (countable and uncountable, plural anastomoses)

1. A cross-connection between two blood vessels.
2. An interconnection between any two channels, passages or vessels.
   • (...) our grandam, which we are linked up with by successive anastomosis of navelcords sold us all, seed, breed and generation, for a penny pippin.1922, James Joyce, Ulysses
3. The surgical creation of a connecting passage between blood vessels, bowels or other channels.
4. The insertion of one word within another, as in "underdarkneath" (James Joyce).

Verb

anastomose (third-person singular simple present anastomoses, present participle anastomosing, simple past and past participle anastomosed)

1. (transitive, usually, blood vessels) To join (two or more things) by anastomosis, to interconnect forming a network.
   • Happisburgh's humans discarded their stone tools close to one of several anastomosing, slow-flowing low-energy rivers, all of which meandered across a floodplain into a large estuary.2014 [2013], Rob Dinnis, Chris Stringer, Britain: One million years of human history, London: Natural History Museum, →ISBN, page 31
2. (intransitive, usually, blood vessels) To join by anastomosis.
   • Within eukaryotic cells, distant branches of the tree of life entwine and melt into an inseparable new lineage; they fuse, or anastomose, as fungal hyphae do.2020, Merlin Sheldrake, Entangled Life, page 92

See all 4 meanings of anastomose