Forms: 6–7 chilus, 6–8 chylus, 7 chile, 7– chyle. [a. F. chyle (= It. chilo, Sp. quilo):—L. chȳlus, a. Gr. χῡλός juice (of plants, animals, decoctions), chyle, f. stem χυ- (χευ-, χε-) to pour, shed, fuse, etc.; cf. CHYME. For some time the Gr.-L. form chylus (chilus) was used.]
1. The white milky fluid formed by the action of the pancreatic juice and the bile on the chyme, and contained in the lymphatics of the intestines, which are hence called lacteals. ‘The term has been used to designate the fluid in the intestines just before absorption’ (Syd. Soc. Lex.).
1541. R. Copland, Guydon’s Quest. Chirurg., H iii b. To make dygestyon, and to brynge the Chilus to the lyuer by meanes of the veynes meseraykes.
1594. T. B., La Primaud. Fr. Acad., II. 346. Chylus in the stomach.
1604. T. Wright, Passions, I. ix. 36. When the meate in our stomackes is sufficiently digested, the chile … there remayneth.
1620. Venner, Via Recta, viii. 171. There can never of crude chyle be made good bloud in the liuer.
1692. Bentley, Boyle Lect., 74. The lacteous vessels for the reception of the chyle.
1718. J. Chamberlayne, Relig. Philos. (1739), I. iv. § 5. A sort of Pap, which the Anatomists call Chylus.
1732. Arbuthnot, Rules of Diet, 274. So as the Chyle may have a free passage into the Blood.
1881. Mivart, Cat, 181. The chyme of the stomach, having been modified by the action of all these secretions, changes into what is called chyle.
fig. 1652. Peyton, Catastr. Ho. Stuarts (1731), 63. The Officers … have not a Dogs Appetite to turn Judicature to a bad Chylos.
1865. Reader, 4 March, 254/1. Digested and assimilated, so to speak, into the chyle of the mind.
† 2. The moisture absorbed by plants. (So in Gr. and L.) Obs.
1731. Tull, Horsehoeing Husb. (1751), 144. The chyle cannot mount in sufficient quantity to be purify’d and turn’d into sap.
3. attrib. and in Comb., as chyle-receptacle, -space, -vessel; chyle-fed, -forming, chyle of the mind adjs.; chyle-clot, the solid matter resulting from the coagulation of the chyle; chyle-corpuscle, the corpuscle-like bodies contained in chyle; chyle-ferment, a diastatic ferment found in the chyle; chyle-stomach (see quot.).
1839–47. Todd, Cycl. Anat., III. 745/1. Very few of the peculiar *chyle-corpuscles are seen.
1872. Geo. Eliot, Middlem., II. III. xxiii. 14 (Hoppe). With the healthiest *chyle-fed blood.
1875. W. Houghton, Shetches Brit. Ins., 15. The *chyle-forming stomach.
1836–9. Todd, Cycl. Anat., II. 133/1. A vertically compressed sac situated between the *chyle-receptacles.
1878. Bell, Gegenbaur’s Comp. Anat., 272. The mid-gut *‘chyle-stomach’ is no less varied in character.
