[L.: see VESTIBULE sb.]
1. = VESTIBULE sb. 1.
1662. J. Davies, trans. Olearius’ Voy. Ambass., 286. In the midst of the Vestibulum, there was a great Fountain.
1664. Evelyn, trans. Freart’s Archit., 132. In those large Xystas, Porticos, Atrias and Vestibula of the Greeks and Romans.
1699. Howe, Redeemer’s Dominion, Wks. 1724, II. 64. Having the Keys of the Celestial House of God,… he should also have the Keys of the Terrestrial Bethel; which is but a sort of Portal or Vestibulum to the other.
1718. Ozell, trans. Tournefort’s Voy., II. v. 176. In the Vestibulum of a Convent of Greek Nuns, there is a Christ very ill painted.
1834. Lytton, Pompeii, I. iii. You enter … by a small entrance-passage (called vestibulum) into a hall.
2. Anat. and Zool. a. = VESTIBULE sb. 2.
1704. J. Harris, Lex. Techn., I. Vestibulum, is a Cavity in the Os Petrosum, behind the Finestra Ovalis.
1726. A. Monro, Anat., 101. Canals, that allow a Passage to the Branches of the Portio mollis of the seventh Pair of Nerves, into the Vestibulum and Cochlea.
1797. M. Baillie, Morb. Anat. (1807), 420. The external parts, particularly the inside of the nymphæ and the vestibulum, are subject to inflammation.
1800. Phil. Trans., XC. 9. The vestibulum … is completely separated from the tympanum.
1880. Günther, Fishes, 116. The membranous vestibulum is continued by a canal to a single opening in the roof of the skull.
b. Zool. The cavity or chamber in certain infusorians into which the œsophagus and anus open.
1859. J. R. Greene, Man. Anim. Kingd., Protozoa, 56. In addition to the oral orifice, the vestibulum is provided with a lateral aperture which would appear to discharge the function of an anus.
1875. Huxley & Martin, Elem. Biol., 87. A groove [in the bell-animalcule], which, at one point, deepens and passes into a wide depression, the vestibulum.
