[L. (in senses 1 and 2), dim. of venter VENTER1.]
1. Anat. and Zool. = VENTRICLE 3.
[1693. trans. Blancard’s Phys. Dict. (ed. 2), Ventriculus, the Stomach.]
1710. J. Harris, Lex. Techn., II. s.v., The Stomach or Ventriculus is placed immediately under the Midriff.
1771. Encycl. Brit., I. 258/1. Ventriculus, or Stomach,… a great bag or reservoir, situated [etc.].
1843. Wilkinson, trans. Swedenborg’s Anim. Kingd., I. iv. 109. The stomach or ventriculus is a hollow membranous viscus.
1894. Athenæum, 21 April, 514/3. The alimentary canal is more of the type of other Gamasidæ than of the Uropodinæ, the ventriculus being small and its cæca long.
b. The gizzard in birds and insects.
1891. in Cent. Dict.
1896. Newton, Dict. Birds, 916. [The] Stomach … consists of an interior portion, the Proventriculus,… and a posterior, the Ventriculus or Gizzard, which is muscular.
2. = VENTRICLE 1.
1721. Encycl. Brit., I. 278/2. The heart … is hollow within, and divided by a septum which runs between the edges into two cavities, called ventriculi.
3. The body-cavity of a sponge.
1897. Huxley, Anat. Inv. Anim., iii. 115. In the simplest Calcispongiæ … the wall of the ventriculus is thin. Ibid., vii. 409. The anterior end of the ventriculus.
