Meaning & use
corpuscle
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Meanings
nouncountablebiologymedical
A cell or very small body floating in blood or lymph, especially a red or white blood cell.
Grammar: Has a plural: red corpuscles.
Patterns
- red corpuscle
- white corpuscle
Under the microscope, the red corpuscles looked like tiny discs.
White corpuscles help the body fight infection.
The doctor counted the corpuscles in a blood sample.
nouncountablebiology
A small rounded structure in the body, such as a nerve ending that detects touch or a filtering unit in the kidney.
Grammar: Usually named with a modifier: renal corpuscle.
Patterns
- renal corpuscle
- tactile corpuscle
Each renal corpuscle filters blood in the kidney.
Special corpuscles under the skin respond to light touch.
Word forms
| plural | corpuscles |
|---|
Common combinations
- red corpuscle
- A red corpuscle carries oxygen around the body.
- white corpuscle
- A white corpuscle surrounds and destroys germs.
- blood corpuscle
- A single drop contains millions of blood corpuscles.
- renal corpuscle
- The renal corpuscle begins the process of making urine.
- Pacinian corpuscle
- A Pacinian corpuscle senses pressure and vibration.
Synonyms and how they differ
- blood cell
- Blood cell is the plain modern phrase, while corpuscle sounds older and more technical.
- cell
- Cell is broader and covers all living cells, whereas corpuscle names certain small cells or structures, mainly in blood.
- particle
- Particle can mean any tiny piece of matter, while corpuscle in biology refers specifically to a body within an organism.
Word family
- corpuscular adjective
- relating to corpuscles, or made of particles
- corpus noun
- a body, or a collection of texts
- haemoglobin noun
- the iron-rich protein inside red corpuscles
- platelet noun
- a tiny blood fragment that helps clotting
Commonly confused: corpuscle or corpse?
corpuscle vs corpse
A corpse is a dead body, while a corpuscle is a microscopic cell or structure. They share a Latin root meaning body, but their uses are quite different.
Practice
In a school biology lesson, which sentence uses corpuscle correctly?
Choose one answer.
A corpuscle is a small cell or body in the blood. The other options use the word for objects and actions it cannot describe.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “corpuscle”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.