plastron
Pronunciation
This text is extracted from the Wiktionary and it is available under the CC BY-SA 3.0 license | Terms and conditions | Privacy policy 0.004
Pronunciation
- IPA: /ˈplæstɹən/
plastron (plural plastrons)
- The nearly flat part of the shell structure of a tortoise or other animal, similar in composition to the carapace.
- (fencing) A half-jacket worn under the jacket for padding or for safety.
- A man's shirt-bosom.
- An ornamental front panel on a woman's bodice.
- 1942, Rebecca West, Black Lamb and Grey Falcon, Canongate 2006, p. 784,
- I bought here a wedding dress perhaps twenty or thirty years old [...] a sequin plastron to be worn over the womb as a feminine equivalent to a cod-piece, and a gauze veil embroidered in purple and gold.
- 1942, Rebecca West, Black Lamb and Grey Falcon, Canongate 2006, p. 784,
- A breastplate.
- A film of air trapped by specialized hairs against the body of an aquatic insect, and which acts as an external gill.
- The plastron of a diving beetle is not directly a source of oxygen, but acts as a gill, acquiring oxygen from the surrounding water.
- 2013, Jill Lancaster, Barbara J. Downes, Aquatic Entomology, page 45 ↗,
- Total independence of atmospheric air is possible only if insects have a permanent gas store or incompressible gas gill, called a plastron. Unlike compressible gas stores, the volume of a plastron remains constant and it is incompressible.
- 2013, Jon F. Harrison, Lutz T. Wasserthal (revisions & updates), 17: Gaseous Exchange, R. F. Chapman, Stephen J. Simpson (editor), Angela E. Douglas (editor), The Insects: Structure and Function, 5th Edition, page 535 ↗,
- The plastrons of other insects are generally less efficient than that of Aphelocheirus as they have a less dense hair pile from which the air is more readily displaced.
This text is extracted from the Wiktionary and it is available under the CC BY-SA 3.0 license | Terms and conditions | Privacy policy 0.004