[ad. mod.L. fīlāmentum, f. late L. fīlāre to spin, f. fīlum thread. Cf. F. filament.]
1. A tenuous thread-like body, resembling a fibre of tow; a minute fibre. Often in scientific use, as applied to animal or vegetable structure.
1594. T. B., La Primaud. Fr. Acad., II. 31. As for the pannicles, and cords or filaments, which are litle long threeds, slender & white, solide & strong.
1664. Power, Experimental Philosophy, I. 66 Why may not all those long filaments of which the substance of the Brain, Spinal Marrow, and Nerves consists, be tubulous and hollow; so that the Animal-Spirits may be channelled through them, as the bloud through the Veins and Arteries?
1671. Grew, The Anatomy of Plants, I. vi. § 9 (1682), 43. Every one having a Seed appendent to it, whose Coats it entreth by a double Filament, on at the Basis, the other at the Cone.
1774. J. Bryant, A New System; or, an Analysis of Ancient Mythology, I. 364. He met with a people, whose very rocks were brazen; their sand was brazen: the rivers conveyed down their streams fine filaments of brass: and the natives esteemed their land golden on account of the plenty of brass.
1791. Hamilton, Berthollet’s Dyeing, I. I. II. i. 123. The principal differences in wool consist in the length and fineness of its filaments.
1841. H. Miller, O. R. Sandst., i. 12. It [the stone] was of a conical form and filamentary texture, the filaments radiating in straight lines from the centre to the circumference.
1854. J. Scoffern, in Orr’s Circ. Sc., Chem. 6. The suspending filament should be, by preference, unspun silk or human hair.
1855. Bain, The Senses and the Intellect, I. ii. § 14. If a posterior or ganglionic root is pricked, the animal will show symptoms of pain, and the pain will be mentally referred to the part where the filaments of the nerve are distributed.
1876. Rock, Text. Fabr., i. 1. Whether of flax, hemp, mallow, or the filaments drawn out of the leaves of plants of the lily and asphodel tribes of flowers, or the fibrous coating about pods, or cotton; whether of gold, silver, or of any other metal; the webs from all such materials are textiles.
fig. = ‘Scrap,’ ‘shred.’
1870. Lowell, Among my Bks., Ser. I. (1873), 356. Is there the least filament of truth in it?
1875. Emerson, Lett. & Soc. Aims, Quot. & Orig., Wks. (Bohn), III. 214. From the slenderest filament of fact a good fable is constructed.
b. spec. The infusible conductor (usually some form of carbon) placed in the glass bulb of an incandescent electric lamp and raised to incandescence by the passage of the current.
1881. S. P. Thompson, Elem. Less. Electr., § 374. In these lamps the carbon filament is mounted upon conducting wiress, usually of platinum, which pass into a glass bulb, into which they are sealed, the bulbs being afterwards exhausted of air.
2. transf., e.g., in filament of air, light, etc.; also in Hydromechanics (see quot. 1850).
1646. Sir T. Browne, Pseud. Ep., II. iv. 80. The effluvium passing out in a smaller thred and more enlengthened filament, it stirreth not the bodies interposed, but returning unto its originall, falls into a closer substance, and carrieth them back unto it self.
1712. Sir R. Blackmore, Creation, II. (1718), 51.
| The ever-rolling Orb’s impulsive Ray | |
| On the next Threads and Filaments does bear | |
| Which form the springy Texture of the Air. |
1810. Vince, Elem. Astron., xxi. 229. Part of that exceedingly fine filament of light was intercepted.
1822–56. De Quincey, Confess. (1862), 73. I had from childhood, on the strength of this mere legal fiction, cherished as a mystic privilege, slender as a filament of air, some fraction of denizenship in the fairy little domain of the English Lakes.
1828. J. M. Spearman, Brit. Gunner (ed. 2), 200. The lateral pressure of a filament of fluid is equal to its vertical pressure.
c. 1850. Rudim. Navig. (Weale), 154. A Filament is an imaginary portion of a stream, of very small breadth, consisting of a row of corpuscles, or of an indefinite number of particles, following each other in the same direction.
1860. Tyndall, Glac., I. xxi. 146. The fog was drawn away in long filaments by the wind.
1879. G. Prescott, Sp. Telephone, 128. The action of the helix, upon filings, consists in grouping them under the forms of filaments parallel to the axis.
3. Bot. That part of the stamen which supports the anther; also (see quot. 1884).
1756. P. Browne, Jamaica, 123. Of the Triandria, or Vegetables that have three distinct Filaments or male generative Parts in every Flower.
1759. B. Stillingfleet, Misc. Tracts Nat. Hist., Introduction (1762), xxx–i. Round the pistil grow six long thready substances called the filaments, each terminated by an oblong body that plays on a pivot, upon the least motion being given to the flower, and is called the anthera.
1776. Withering, Brit. Plants (1796), I. 22. Finding 10 Stamens in each, and the Filaments not united.
1858. Carpenter, Veg. Phys., § 9. If we apply the point of a needle to the filaments of the Berberry stamen, they fly down and strike the pistil.
1884. Syd. Soc. Lex., Sexual Filament, the one-celled stalk of the oogonium of some Algæ when it also bears an antheridium.
4. nonce-uses. a. A thread-like band. b. (with etymological reference) A spun thread.
1715. trans. Pancirollus’ Rerum Mem., I. IV. ii. 157. The Pagan Priests had a Cap upon their Heads, which when they could not endure the Heat, they bound them with a woollen Filament.
1791. Cowper, Odyss., VIII. 344.
| And hung them numerous from the roof, diffused | |
| Like spiders’ filaments, which not the Gods | |
| Themselves could see, so sublte were the toils. |
