Word Finder - substance

definition

Physical matter; material.

synonyms

• matter
• stuff

definition

The essential part of anything; the most vital part.

synonyms

• crux
• gist

definition

Substantiality; solidity; firmness.

example

Some textile fabrics have little substance.

definition

Material possessions; estate; property; resources.

example

a man of substance

definition

A form of matter that has constant chemical composition and characteristic properties.

definition

Drugs (illegal narcotics)

example

substance abuse

synonyms

• dope
• gear

definition

Hypostasis.

definition

To give substance to; to make real or substantial.

The future system I foresee will not be different in substance, but only in degree.

The substance of thought is language, and language is the one thing to teach the deaf child and every other child.

The mode of heating varies with the substance to be distilled.

Two chlorides of copper are known, one a highly coloured substance, the other quite white.

He believes that the capsule contains a substance which swells very rapidly when brought into contact with water, and that in the undischarged condition the capsule has its.

Similarly the substance we call wine is undeniably variable in composition.

The difficulty is solved by the provision of a complete system of minute intercellular spaces which form a continuous series of delicate canals between the cells, extending throughout the whole substance of the plant.

Cedria, or cedar resin, is a substance similar to mastic, that flows from incisions in the tree; and cedar manna is a sweet exudation from its branches.

When the substance operated upon is of uncertain composition, as, for example, coal, wood, coal-tar, &c., the term destructive distillation is employed.

The fundamental substance or stroma is colorless and homogeneous.

If we examine such a substance as sugar we find that it can be broken up into fine grains, and these again into finer, the finest particles still appearing to be of the same nature as sugar.

Glycogen, a substance related to starch and sugar, is found in the Fungi and Cyanophyceae as a food reserve.

Plant life, utilizing solar light to combine the inorganic elements of water, soil and air into living substance, is the basis of all animal life.

Henry's demands were more defensible in substance than might be supposed from the manner in which he pressed them on the bishops.

In the sequel he prepared a new evolutionary signal-book, which was adopted by the royal navy, and still remains in substance the foundation of the existing system of tactical evolutions at sea.

Leber experimented with several chemical compounds to find what reaction they had on these cells; by using fine glass tubes sealed at the outer end and containing a chemical substance, and by introducing the open end into the blood vessels he found that the leucocytes were attracted - positive chemiotaxis - by the various compounds of mercury, copper, turpentin, and other substances.

His most original contribution to the substance of Roman literature was that he first shaped into poetry the experience of his own heart, as it had been shaped by Alcaeus and Sappho in the early days of Greek poetry.

On the whole this century shows, in form, language and substance, the signs of literary decay.

But, in attempting to make this conception quite clear and thinkable, we are forced to represent the connexion of things as a universal substance, the essence of which we conceive as a system of laws which underlies everything and in its own self connects everything, but imperceptible, and known to us merely through the impressions it produces on us, which we call things.

The word is derived from the general resemblance of the texture of plant substance to that of a textile fabric, and dates from a period when the fundamental constitution of plant substance from individual cells was not yet discovered.

Cells of this type are often called trumpet-hyphae (though they have no connection with the hyphae of Fungi), and in some genera of Laminariaceae those at the periphery of the medulla simulate the sieve-tubes of the higher plants in a striking degree, even (like these latter) developing the peculiar substance callose on or in the perforated cross-walls or sieve-plates.

The peculiar substance called callose, chemically allied to cellulose, is frequently formed over the surface of the perforated end-walls.

They have emphasized the statements of Von Mohl, Cohn, and other writers alluded to, that the protoplasm is here also the dominant factor of the body, and that all the peculiarities of the cell-wall can only be interpreted in the light of the needs of the living substance.

Those organisms which possess the latter are a little higher in the scale of life than those which remain unclothed by it, but a comparison of the behaviour of the two quickly enables us to say that the membrane is of but secondary importance, and that for those which possess it, it is nothing more than a protective covering for the living substance.

If we pass a little higher up the scale ot life we meet with forms consisting of two or more cells, each of which contains a similar minute mass of living substance, A study of them shows that each is practically independent of the others; in fact, the connection between them is so slight that they can separate and each becofne free without the slightest disadvantage to another.

The second prominent differentiation which presents itself takes the form of a provision to supply the living substance with water.

The apparently structureless substance is saturated with it; and if once a cell is completely dried, even at a low temperature, in the enormous majority of cases its life iS gone and the restoration of water fails to enable it to recover.

There can be no doubt that there is no fundamental difference between the living substance of animals and plants, for many forms exist which cannot be referred with certainty to either kingdom.

The interest with which we regard the latter no longer turns upon the details of the structuie of its trunk, limbs and roots, to which the living substance of the more superficial parts was subordinated.

We see herein the reason for the great subdivision of the body, with its finely cut twigs and their ultimate expansions, the leaves, and we recognize that this subdivision is only an expression of the need to place the living substance in direct relationship with the environment.

Nature of the Food of Planls.The recognition of the fundamental identity of the living substance in animals and plants has directed attention to the manner in which plants are nourished, and especially to the exact nature of their food.

The idea was till recently currently accepted, that anything which plants absorbed from without, and which went to build up their organic substance, or to supply them with energy, or to exert some beneficial influence upon their metabolism, coiistituted their food.

If we examine the seat of active growth in a young root or twig, we find that the cells in which the organic substance, the protoplasm, of the plant is being formed and increased, are not supplied with carbon dioxide and mineral matter, but with such elaborated material as sugar and proteid substances, or others closely allied to them.

Identity of the Food of Animals and Plants.rt is evidently to the actual seats of consumption of food, and of consequent nutrition and increase of living substance, that we should turn when we wish to inquire what are the nutritive materials of plants.

The general vegetable protoplasm has not the capacity of being nourished by inorganic substances which are denied to the living substance of the animal world.

A consideration of these facts emphasizes still more fully the view with which we set out, that all living substance is fundamentally, the same, though differentiated both anatomically and physiologically in many directions and in different degrees.

It consists essentially of a number of minute corpuscles or plastids, the protoplasmic substance of which is impregnated with a green coloring matter.

The way in which such food when manufactured is incorporated into, and enabled to build up, the living substance is again hidden in obscurity.

The first of these, which may be regarded as growth proper, is the manufacture of additional quantities of living substance.

The outermost, newly formed layer is composed of a more homogeneous, denser substance than the inner one, and can be distinguished in all starch-grains that are in process of development.

Aleurone.Aleurone is a proteid substance which occurs in seeds especially those containing oil, in the form of minute granules or large grains.

It may be in the form of an albumen crystal sometimes associated with a more or less spherical bodygloboid-composed of a combination of an organic substance with a double phosphate of magnesium and calcium.

The Structure of the Nucleus.In the living condition the resting nucleus appears to consist of a homogeneous ground substance containing a large number of small chromatin granules and one or more large spherical granulesnucleolithe whole being surrounded by a limiting membrane which separates it from the cytoplasm.

When fixed and stained this granular mass is resolved into a more or less distinct granular network which consists of a substance called Linin, only slightly stained by the ordinary nuclear stains, and, embedded in it, a more deeply stainable substance called Chromatin.

Nuclein is a complex albuminoid substance containing phosphorus and iron in organic combination (Macallum).

It is generally surrounded by a granular or radiating cytoplasmic substance.

The chromatin substance increases in amount; the thread stains moie deeply, and in most cases presents a homogeneous appearance.

In order to effect this the individual chromosomes must become associated in some way, for there is no diminution in the actual amount of nuclear substance, and this leads to certain modifications in the division which are not seen in the vegetative nuclei.

It has been suggested that synapsis may be connected with the early longitudinal splitting of the thread or with the pairing of the chromosomes, but it is possible that it may be connected with the transference of nucleolar substance to the nuclear thread.

In the Cyanophyceae the contents of the cell are differentiated into a central colorless region, and a peripheral layer containing the chlorophyll and other coloring matters together with granules of a reserve substance called cyanophycin.