Also 8 sphærule. [ad. L. sphēr-, sphærula, dim. of sphæra SPHERE sb. Cf. F. sphérule.]
1. A little sphere; a small or minute spherical or globular body.
1665. Hooke, Microgr., 85. A Spherule or Globe.
1713. Derham, Phys.-Theol., 79, note. The Particles of Water thus mounted up by the Heat, are visibly Sphærules of Water, if viewed with a Microscope.
1752. Phil. Trans., XLVII. 457. Each … was composed of ten or twelve angular and chrystalline spherules.
1813. T. Busby, Lucretius, II. VI. Comm. p. vii. The density of the spherules is less and less as the parts recede from the centre.
1852. Dana, Crust., I. 642. Minute, ruby-red spherules.
1875. M. Collins, Sweet & Twenty, I. x. A fountain … throwing its showers of perennial spherules into the air untiringly.
attrib. c. 1790. Imison, Sch. Arts, I. 215. In using these spherule microscopes, the objects are to be placed in one focus, and the eye in the other.
2. Bot. ‘A globose peridium, with a central opening, through which sporidia are emitted’ (Lindley).
1796. Withering, Brit. Plants (ed. 3), IV. 391. Spherules in heaps, but not confluent, globular, very small.
