pedicles

Noun

pedicle (plural pedicles)

1. A fleshy line used to attach and anchor brachiopods and some bivalve molluscs to a substrate.
   • A species of shell-fish, often found sticking by its pedicle to the bottom of ships, doing no other injury than deadening the way a little: "Barnacles, termed soland geese In th' islands of the Orcades."1867, William Henry Smyth, The Sailor's Word-Book
2. The attachment point for antlers in cervids.
   • His long, rakish horns are mounted on a pedicle that extends above his head, thus accentuating the droll length of his features.1910, John T. McCutcheon, In Africa
3. A stalk that attaches a tumour to normal tissue
   • --Figure 3. Fig. 4, Plate 58, represents the neck of the bladder and neighbouring part of the urethra of an ox, in which a polypous growth is seen attached by a long pedicle to the veru montanum and blocking up the neck of the bladder.1859, Joseph Maclise, Surgical Anatomy
4. pedicel (any sense)
   • One of the ends is lengthened out into a neck or pedicle, which is as long as the egg proper.1914, Alexander Teixeira De Mattos, The Mason-bees
5. peduncle (any sense)
   • The chimpanzee Heschl's gyrus homolog also showed evidence of a strongly excavated middle Heschl's sulcus, within the confines of a single gyral pedicle, predominantly in the right hemisphere.1998 January 9, Patrick J. Gannon et al., “Asymmetry of Chimpanzee Planum Temporale: Humanlike Pattern of Wernicke's Brain Language Area Homolog”, in Science, volume 279, number 5348, →DOI, pages...
6. Part of a skin or tissue graft temporarily left attached to its original site.

See all 7 meanings of pedicle