Pl. acini. [L. acinus, a berry growing in a cluster, a grape; also a kernel occurring in a cluster, a grapestone.]
† 1. A berry that grows in clusters, as grapes, currants, etc.; sometimes applied to the whole cluster. Obs.
1731. Bailey, vol. II., Acini … small grains growing in bunches of which the fruit of the Elder-tree, Privet, and other plants of the like kind are composed.
2. Bot. One of the small fleshy berries or drupes that make up such compound fruits as the blackberry; sometimes applied to the compound fruit which they compose.
1830. Lindley, Nat. Syst. Bot., 81. Fruit either 1-seeded nuts, or acini, or follicles containing several seeds.
1834. Good, Bk. of Nat., I. 164. The acinus or conglomerate berry, as in the rasp.
1837. Macculloch, Attrib. of God, III. xlvi. 220. The acinus of botanists constitutes the basis of another class of fruits, and the Raspberry is a familiar example.
1880. Gray, Bot. Text-Bk., 394. Acinus … now sometimes applied to the separate carpels of an aggregate baccate fruit, or to the contained stone or seed.
3. The stones or seeds of grapes and berries.
1731. Bailey, vol. II., Acini [with Physicians] the seed that is within a fruit, and thence they in their prescriptions frequently use uva exacinata, i.e. the Acini or seeds being taken out.
1880. [See under 2].
4. Anat. A racemose gland; a blind end of a duct of a secreting gland, which is divided into several lobes.
1751. Chambers, Cycl., s.v. Acini, Anatomists have called some glands of a similar formation [to bunches of grapes] Acini Glandulosi.
1877. Huxley, Anat. Inv. An., vii. 410. The ducts which arise from these acini unite first into a single trunk on each side.
5. Anat. (See quot.)
1847. Youatt, Horse, xiii. 297. There are, scattered through the substance of the liver, numerous little granules, called acini, from their resemblance to the small stones of certain berries.
