Fleshy part, muscle; esp. the rounded muscles of the arm, leg and thumb.

The fleshy or muscular area of a part of the body.

That part of the human or animal body which consists of muscles; the muscles of the body collectively, esp. with reference to their strength or size.

any of the elongated contractile cells of which muscle tissue is composed.

Originally: the coagulable protein in muscle plasma (consisting largely of what is now called actomyosin) (now historical). Later: any of a family…

= sarcomere, n.

(see quot. 1884).

Originally: an embryonic muscle-forming or myoepithelial cell in an invertebrate; (also) †embryonic muscle-forming tissue, mesoderm (obsolete)…

= sarcomere, n.

Hermann's term for a hypothetical complex substance supposed to exist in muscular fibre and to be the energy-yielding substance of muscle.

= sarcomere, n.

A unit of a myofibril in striated muscle, consisting of a dark band and the nearer half of each adjacent pale band.

Any of the numerous longitudinal contractile structures, each about one to two micrometres in diameter, that occupy the cytoplasm of a myofibre.

Originally: the cytoplasm of a muscle cell; = sarcoplasm n. at sarco-, comb._form affix. Later also: spec. the interfibrillary portion of the…

= myofibril, n.

A cylindrical syncytial cell that develops from myoblasts during the formation of a muscle fibre.

Any of the ultramicroscopic, rod-like aggregates of protein molecules that are arranged in an overlapping array in the sarcomere of a…

A muscle fibre. Cf. myofibril, n.