a. and sb. [ad. Gr. σωματικός, f. σῶμα, σώματ- body. So F. somatique.]
A. adj. 1. Of or pertaining to the (or a) body; bodily, corporeal, physical.
1775. Ash, Somatic, corporeal, belonging to a body.
1816. Bentham, Chrestomathia, Wks. 1843, VIII. 187. Somatic, or Somatological fictitious entities.
1859. Sat. Rev., 10 Dec., 709/1. Those in which somatic and psychical coefficients are manifestly intermingled.
1884. Blackmore, Tommy Upm., I. iii. 23. Variant motions and emotions, both somatic and psychical.
b. Anat. and Phys. of parts of the body.
1859. Huxley, Oceanic Hydrozoa, 26. The diverticulum of the somatic cavity becomes pyriform.
1861. J. R. Greene, Man. Anim. Kingd., Cœlent., 6. The nutritive, or somatic, fluid occupying the general cavity of the body.
1881. Jrnl. Microsc. Sci., Jan., 73. The two layers of the mesoblast, somatic and splanchnic.
1899. Allbutt’s Syst. Med., VI. 371. The termination of the somatic nerves derived from the segment of the cord.
c. spec. Pertaining to the soma in contrast to the germ.
1888. Nature, 14 June, 156/2. In the Metazoa, the germ-cells, instead of remaining single, give rise to the vast number of somatic cells which compose the adult structure.
1896. Mrs. Romanes, Life & Lett. Romanes, 35. It is demonstrated that the somatic tissues of the scion have exercised an effect on the germinal elements of the stock.
2. Affecting the body.
1835–6. J. A. Symonds, in Todd’s Cycl. Anat., I. 791, note. The writer is indebted to … Dr. Prichard for the suggestion of somatic [instead of systemic],… but he has not had the courage to introduce it into the text.
1839–47. Carpenter, Ibid. III. 757/2. Molecular death is not always an immediate consequence of somatic death.
1899. Allbutt’s Syst. Med., VIII. 425. Hypnotism could do nothing in somatic affections.
B. sb. pl. Somatology.
1816. Bentham, Chrestomathia, Wks. 1843, VIII. 87. This branch of Art and Science is entitled to the appellation of Coenoscopic Anthropurgics, or Somatics.
1861. Sat. Rev., 15 June, 621. The Germans retort by accusing their adversaries … of ‘mechanical, soulless somatics (somatik).’
So Somatical a., ‘corporeal, bodily, substantial’ (Bailey, 1727); Somatically adv.
1847. trans. Feuchtersleben’s Med. Psychol., 219. Somatically they [i.e., certain excitements] act at the expense of the brain.
1902. Pop. Sci. Monthly, March, 421. But while the Seri Indians are so well developed somatically,… they have been no less notorious … for unparalleled laziness.
