squame

English

Etymology

From Latin squāma. Doublet of squama.

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /skweɪm/

• Audio (Southern England):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -eɪm

Noun

squame (plural squames)

1. (zoology) The scale, or exopodite, of an antenna of a crustacean.
2. (medicine) A flake of dead skin tissue.
   • 1984, Gheorghe Stoica, In Vivo Diverse Spectrum of Neoplasms Induced in 30-day-old Rats and in Vitro Neoplastic Transformation of Rat Mammary Epithelial Cells Following a Single Pulse of N-Ethyl-N-Nitrosourea, page 113:

     EGF increased proliferation and squame formation and induced keratinization in cultured MA cells, an observation heretofore not reported in rat MA cells.

   • 2009, David Weedon, Weedon's Skin Pathology, page 248:

     They flatten further and become compacted into a dense keratinous layer known as the stratum corneum. The superficial flake-like squames are eventually cast off (desquamate).

   • 2011, Terence Allen, Graham Cowling, The Cell: A Very Short Introduction, Oxford, page 80:

     Squames begin life as normal cells in the lower layers of the epidermis but, as they travel towards the surface, they progressively lose all recognizable contents, becoming plates of mainly keratin protein, based on a progressive deposition of protein on the intermediate filaments of the cytoskeleton.

3. (medicine) A squamous (scale-like) cell.
   • 1928, Journal of the Cancer Research Committee of the University of Sydney, Volume 1, page 210:

     Here the invading cell masses of the cancer consist of short thick squames, and the nearest approach to cell nest formation may be only a whorling of those squames in the centres of the cell masses.

   • 1961, Edmund R. Novak, Georgeanna Seegar Jones, Novak's Textbook of Gynecology, page 766:

     Second, if it is a squame, the nuclear size and chromatin pattern are determined. If the nucleus of this squame is plump and vesicular with an intact chromatin pattern, the cell is an intermediate; if it is pyknotic, shrunken, and hyperchromatic and lacks chromatin pattern, the cell is a superficial.

   • 2011, Margaret V. Root Kustritz, Clinical Canine and Feline Reproduction: Evidence-Based Answers, page 7:

     As the cells divide and the vaginal lining thickens, the cells nearest the lumen become nonviable and lose the characteristic appearance of a healthy cell monolayer. The misshapen, clumped cells are termed cornified. Specific cell types are superficial cells and anuclear squame cells (Fig. 2-2).

4. (anatomy) A bony plate.
   • 1991, Phillip V. Tobias, The Skulls, Endocasts, and Teeth of Homo Habilis, page 84:

     Most of the right temporal bone is well-preserved, with the exception of much of the zygoma and the upper edge of the temporal squame (Plate 8).

   • 2003, South African Journal of Science - Volume 99, Issues 1-6, page 219:

     A tapering of the fragment on its inner surface, and the pattern of branching of the middle meningeal vessel grooves, have enabled us to identify the piece as most probably part of the left temporal squame of a cranium.

   • 2007, Frederick E. Grine, Evolutionary History of the "Robust" Australopithecines, page 287:

     Thus, the frontal fragment displays a slight concavity of the frontal squame behind glabella, a thin and flattened supra-orbital margin, and marked encroachment of the temporal lines just posterior to the supra-orbital margin.

Anagrams

• masque

French

Etymology

Learned alteration of Old French eschame, after its source, Latin squama.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /skwam/

• Audio:

  (file)

Noun

squame f (plural squames)

1. (archaic or literary) scale

Further reading

• “squame”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.

Italian

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈskwa.me/
• Rhymes: -ame
• Hyphenation: squà‧me

Noun

squame f

1. plural of squama

Middle English

Alternative forms

• (early) scwame
• (Northern) swame

Etymology

From Old French esquame, from Latin squāma.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈskwaːm(ə)/

Noun

squame (plural squames)

1. Metal that flakes; a flake of such metal.
   • 1387–1400, Geoffrey Chaucer, “The Tale of the Chanons Yeman”, in The Canterbury Tales, [Westminster: William Caxton, published 1478], →OCLC; republished in [William Thynne], editor, The Workes of Geffray Chaucer Newlye Printed, […], [London]: […] [Richard Grafton for] Iohn Reynes […], 1542, →OCLC:

     yron squames

     (please add an English translation of this quotation)

2. (pathology) A flake or scale.
   • c. 1450, “Additions to the Rule or Saint Saviour”, in George James Aungier, editor, History and Antiquities of Syon Monastery, published 1840, page 395:

     not squames to wasche them, and wype them, nor auoyde them, not angry nor hasty, or un pacient thof one haue the vomet, another the fluxe, another the frensy, which nowe syngethe, now wel apayde, ffor ther be some sekenesses vexynge the seke so gretly and prouokynge them to ire, that the mater drawen up to the brayne alyenthe the mendes.

     (please add an English translation of this quotation)

3. (rare) Any scale or plate.

Related terms

• squamous

Descendants

• English: squame

References

• “squāme, n.”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007.