vitellary

From Latin vitellus (“a little calf, the yolk of an egg”) +‎ -ary.

vitellary (comparative more vitellary, superlative most vitellary)

1. (biology) Vitelline.
   • 1841, Rudolph Wagner, Elements of Physiology, page 125:

     The intestine makes several turns outside of the umbilicus, and continues in communication with the vitellary sac by means of the vitellary duct; upon the inner surface of the vitellary sac, and over the tortuous veins, membranous productions — puckered or wrinkled folds — make their appearance;

   • 1843 October, T. Wharton Jones, “Report on the Ovum of Man and the Mammifera, Before and After Fecundation”, in The British and Foreign Medical Review or Quarterly Journal, volume 16., page 553:

     The gelatinous-looking investment which, as above seen, the ovum in the Fallopian tube presents in addition to the vitellary membrane (zona) of the ovarian ovum, was first indicated by the author of this report as the future chorion.

   • 1852, Charles Delucena Meigs, Obstetrics: the science and the art, page 126:

     I shall here offer the remark, that if the concave superficies of the ovisac, or inner concentric, is really charged with the office of producing or excreting the vitellary matter of the ovulum, which must be admitted, even if we allow to that body the metabolic and plastic cell-force, (for it must, at least, be the producer of the cytoblatem of the cell,) there is no very great difficulty in admitting that the convex or exterior superficies of the same membrane may exercise the same functions as the dominant of those elective affinities which must be supposed as to every vital excrete.

   • 1973, Hormone Research - Volume 3, page 7:

     Vitellary degeneration is recognizable as early as 4 days after injection of HCG.

vitellary (plural vitellaries)

1. (biology) A cluster of undeveloped eggs within the ovary of a female bird.
   • 1879, John Moore, ‎William Bernhard Tegetmeier, Moore's Columbarium, page 9:

     It is the Opinion of most, and that no without great Probability, that all the Eggs a Hen will ever lay, are contain'd in this Vitellary or Cluster, and that as soon as this Number is exhausted, she will become effœte or barren.

   • 1884, Sir Thomas Browne, ‎Simon Wilkin, The Works of Sir Thomas Browne, page 373:

     A greater difficulty, in the doctrine of eggs, is, how the sperm of the cock prolificates and makes the oval conception fruitful, or how it attaineth unto every egg, since the vitellary or place of the yolk is very high; since the ovary or part where the white involveth it, is in the second region of the matrix, which is somewhat long and inverted; since also a cock will in one day fertilate the whole racemation or cluster of eggs, which are not excluded in many weeks after.

   • 1914, “The Foundations of Morphologic Embryology”, in Pamphlets on Biology: Kofoid collection - Volume 1308, page 137:

     Highmore also controverted the idea of Fabricius that the cicatricula is a scar left by "breaking of the footstock, by which it was fastened to the Hen," and added, "Parisanus though it the seed of the cock, but I think it to be the seminal Atomes derived from both" the cock and hen for it is already present "when the eggs are but small little grains contained in the Egg-bag or Vitellary."

   • 1977, Polish Archives of Hydrobiology, page 337:

     Caloricity of the body of B. rubens was determine in preovigerous females, aged>24 h, in which it is probably higher (due to the development of ovary and vitellary), than in the precedent period of growth.

2. The vitelline gland; a gland that produces yolk in some worms.
   • 1911, The Encyclopaedia Britannica, page 762:

     In Asplanchnaceae, the germary is median, continuous at the distal end with the middle of the transverse horseshoe-shaped vitellary. In Bdelloidaceae and Seisonaceae the whole organ is paired, the germary proximal, the vitellary next the cloaca.

   • 1990, Microfauna marina - Volume 6, page 81:

     The germary is ventrolaterally joint to the syncytial tissue. Mouth of the vitellary not seen .

   • 2004, D.R. Khanna, Biology Of Helminthes, page 30:

     The ootype is also connected with vitellaries, their secretion providing the embryo with yolk and participating in the egg shell formation.

• vitreally