combining form, on Greek analogies, of Gr. σπογγιά, L. spongia, SPONGE sb.1, as in Spongioblast Biol., one of the embryonic cells of the brain and spinal cord from which the neuroglia is formed; Spongio-fibrous a., provided with sponge-like fibers; Spongiologist, -logy, = SPONGOLOGIST, -LOGY; Spongioplasm Biol., a fibrillar or protoplasmic network pervading the cell-substance and forming the reticulum of the cell; hence Spongioplasmic a.
1902. Science, 17 Jan., 103. Mitotic figures are occasionally found in multipolar nerve cells and in *spongioblasts.
1822. J. Parkinson, Outl. Oryctol., 56. Alcyonium incrustans.—Lobated; *spongio-fibrous within.
1873. Ann. Nat. Hist., XI. 245, note. The later *spongiologists … almost unanimously refer the sponges to a place among the Protozoa.
1892. Athenæum, 13 Aug., 228/1. The arguments of other spongiologists.
1895. Funk’s Stand. Dict., *Spongiology.
1886. Nansen, Histol. Elem. Nervous Syst., 38. The contents of the cells consists, also, of the same two substances of *spongioplasm and hyaloplasm. Ibid., 86. What he called fibrillæ, are the *spongioplasmic walls between the real ‘primitive fibrillæ.’
