filament (fil'am-ent)

Any threadlike body or slender fiber, achromatic f's. See achromatic fibrils, bipolar f's. Fibrils of achromatic substance extending between the two poles of the nuclear spindie and forming the achromatic figure. chromatic f's. See nuclear fibrils, cleft nuclear f's. The longitudinally divided nuclear fibrils seen in karyokinesis just before the fibrils are arranged into sets to form the daughter nuclei, olfactory f's. See olfactory hairs, under hair, protoplasmic f. A f. or fibril of protoplasm; a fibril in the cell body, in contradistinction to one in the nucleus. seminal f., spermatic f. See spermatozoid. terminal f. The delicate proce which forms the inferior termination of the spinal cord, unipolar f's. Syn.: polar rays, cytaster. The radiating, starlike or sunlike rays of achromatin or specialized cell protoplasm, extending from the poles of a nuclear spindle or a mph i as thread.]ter. [Lat., fil amentum, from filum, a filamentous (fil-am-ent'us). A term used in descriptive bacteriology, meaning threadlike or composed of filaments or threads. [Lat., fil amentum.']