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punctum saliens. In DICTIOUS you will not only get to know all the dictionary meanings for the word
punctum saliens, but we will also tell you about its etymology, its characteristics and you will know how to say
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English
Etymology
Borrowed from Latin punctum saliēns (“leaping point”), attributed to Volcher Coiter or Ulysses Aldrovandi, after a Latin translation of Aristotle's History of Animals (book 6, part 3).
Noun
punctum saliens (uncountable)
- (biology, chiefly historical) The primordial heart in an embryo, appearing as a throbbing point.
1846, The Lancet London: A Journal of British and Foreign Medicine, Surgery, Obstetrics, Physiology, Chemistry, Pharmacology, Public Health and News, page 382:The rudiments of the brain, eyes, punctum saliens, spinal cord, six vertebrae, shades of ribs, a dark knob at the cephalic extremity of spine, and an oval expansion at the caudal extremity.
- (figurative) Starting point, source; gist.
- Synonyms: see Thesaurus:gist
1830, The American Journal of the Medical Sciences, page 67:In him we discover the punctum saliens of a principle which is the master spirit of animal and vegetable motion, the ruling power of chemical science, the governing influence of atmospheric composition, the presiding genius of respiration, […]
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