a. [f. L. tubul-us a small tube, a pipe + -AR; cf. F. tubulaire (1771 in Dict. Trévoux).]
1. Having the form of a tube or pipe; constituting or consisting of a tube; cylindrical, hollow, and open at one or both ends; tube-shaped.
Tubular bridge, a bridge formed of a great tube or hollow beam, usually of wrought iron, through which the roadway passes.
1673. Grew, Anat. Trunks, I. iv. § 15. The Pins being also conceived to be Tubular.
1827. Faraday, Chem. Manip., xvi. (1842), 405. These tubular vessels may be supported with facility … upon the table across two or three pieces of glass.
1850. E. Clark (title), The Britannia and Conway Tubular Bridges.
1872. Yeats, Techn. Hist. Comm., 243. The idea of tubular bricks is not new, for they were used by the Romans.
b. Bot.: esp. applied to a flower or floret consisting mainly of a tube, with small or inconspicuous limb; spec. to such florets in a composite flower (opp. to LIGULATE).
1776. J. Lee, Introd. Bot., Explan. Terms 396. Tubulosa, Florets that are all tubular and equal.
1807. J. E. Smith, Phys. Bot., 457. Flowers … with united tubular anthers.
1877–84. F. E. Hulme, Wild Fl., p. vii. Primrose,—Calyx tubular, five-toothed.
1880. Gray, Struct. Bot., vi. § 5 (ed. 6), 248. Tubular … strictly … denotes a gamophyllous perianth with limb inconspicuous … as in Trumpet Honeysuckle.
c. Zool. and Anat.
1794. Sullivan, View Nat., II. 175. Those of the coral class, of a ramified and tubular form.
1802. Bingley, Anim. Biog. (1813), I. 46. The tongue … in several [insects] … is fleshy and tubular.
1872. Coues, N. Amer. Birds, 29. Rounded nostrils may have a raised border or rim; when this is prolonged they are called tubular.
2. Relating to, or performed by means of, a tube.
a. 1716. R. Cotes, Lect. (1738), A vj. Experiments for the most part tubular.
3. Constructed with or consisting of a number of tubes; as a tubular boiler (see also TUBULOUS 2 b and cf. tubular-flued).
1804. Troughton, in Nicholson’s Philos. Jrnl., Dec., 225 (title), Description of a Tubular Pendulum. Ibid., 228. The first pendulum which I made of the tubular kind, had only three steel wires, and one tube above the bob.
1819. Pantologia, s.v. Pendulum, We may date the invention of the tubular pendulum … about the year 1775.
1825. J. Nicholson, Operat. Mechanic, 527. Troughton’s tubular-pendulum … is constructed of an exterior tube of brass,… within which is another tube, and five brass wires in its belly.
1858. Simmonds, Dict. Trade, Tubular-boiler, a boiler consisting of tubes.
1862. Catal. Internat. Exhib., Brit., II. No. 6132. Metallic tubular bedsteads.
1877. Knight, Dict. Mech., Tubular Boiler, a name properly applicable to a steam-boiler in which the water circulates in pipes,… the fire encircling them.
4. a. Path. (See quot.) ? Obs.
1822–7. Good, Study Med. (1829), I. 287. Diarrhœa Tubularis. Tubular Looseness. The dejections consisting more or less of membrane-like tubes, whitish, viscous, and inodorous. Ibid., V. 49. Tubular diarrhœa.
b. Phys. and Path. Applied to a high-pitched respiratory murmur, like the sound made by blowing through a tube, heard normally over the trachea and bronchial tubes, and in diseased conditions over the lung.
1834. J. Forbes, Laennec’s Dis. Chest (ed. 4), 119. The stethoscope detected … no other respiratory sound, but that of a dry respiration, evidently tubular or bronchial.
1898. Allbutt’s Syst. Med., V. 205. The breath-sounds are tubular or cavernous—the term ‘tubular’ is used here as synonymous with bronchial.
5. Comb., as tubular-shaped; esp. in Bot. with another adj., denoting a combination of tubular with another form, as tubular-campanulate, -urceolate; tubular-flued, having tubular flues.
1815. J. Smith, Panorama Sci. & Art, II. 825. In a proper cylindrical, almost tubular-shaped vessel, two feet high.
1840. Encycl. Brit. (ed. 7), XX. 674/2. These tubular-flued boilers are at the present day extensively used.
1847. W. E. Steele, Field Bot., 118. [Erica] Mediterranea. Cor[olla] tubular-urceolate.
1870. Hooker, Stud. Flora, 379. Polygonatum…. Perianth tubular-campanulate.
Hence Tubularity, the quality of being tubular, tubular form of structure; Tubularly adv., in a tubular manner, so as to form a tube.
1746. Da Costa, in Phil. Trans., XLIV. 402. Such different Effects as Solidity and Tubularity.
1856. R. Shield, Pract. Hints Moths & Butterfl., 74. In tubularly rolled leaves of honeysuckle we shall find the larvæ.
1890. Manch. Exam., 20 June. The special advantage of tubularity in bells seems to be that they are only heard in the immediate neighbourhood.
