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Prosphysis

A growing together of parts; specifically, a morbid adhesion of the eyelids to each other or to the eyeball.

Prost

a contracted form of prosit.

Prostate

Standing before; -- applied to a gland which is found in the males of most mammals, and is situated at the neck of the bladder where this joins the urethra. The prostate gland.

Prostatic

Of or pertaining to the prostate gland.

Prosternum

The ventral plate of the prothorax of an insect.

Prosthesis

The addition to the human body of some artificial part, to replace one that is wanting, as a log or an eye; -- called also prothesis.

Prosthetic

Of or pertaining to prosthesis; prefixed, as a letter or letters to a word.

Prostibulous

Of or pertaining to prostitutes or prostitution; meretricious.

Prostitute

A woman giver to indiscriminate lewdness; a strumpet; a harlot.

Prostitution

The act or practice of prostituting or offering the body to an indiscriminate intercourse with men; common lewdness of a woman.

Prostitutor

One who prostitutes; one who submits himself, of or offers another, to vile purposes.

Prostomium

That portion of the head of an annelid situated in front of the mouth.

Prostrate

To lay fiat; to throw down; to level; to fell; as, to prostrate the body; to prostrate trees or plants.

Prostration

The act of prostrating, throwing down, or laying fiat; as, the prostration of the body.

Prostyle

Having columns in front. A prostyle portico or building.

Prosylogism

A syllogism preliminary or logically essential to another syllogism; the conclusion of such a syllogism, which becomes a premise of the following syllogism.

Protactic

Giving a previous narrative or explanation, as of the plot or personages of a play; introductory.

Protagon

A nitrogenous phosphorized principle found in brain tissue. By decomposition it yields neurine, fatty acids, and other bodies.

Protagonist

One who takes the leading part in a drama; hence, one who takes lead in some great scene, enterprise, conflict, or the like.

Protamin

An amorphous nitrogenous substance found in the spermatic fluid of salmon. It is soluble in water, which an alkaline reaction, and unites with acids and metallic bases.

Protandric

Having male sexual organs while young, and female organs later in life.

Protatic

Of or pertaining to the protasis of an ancient play; introductory.

Proteaceous

Of or pertaining to the Proteace/, an order of apetalous evergreen shrubs, mostly natives of the Cape of Good Hope or of Australia.

Protean

Of or pertaining to Proteus; characteristic of Proteus.

Protect

To cover or shield from danger or injury; to defend; to guard; to preserve in safety; as, a father protects his children.

Protection

The act of protecting, or the state of being protected; preservation from loss, injury, or annoyance; defense; shelter; as, the weak need protection.

Protectionism

The doctrine or policy of protectionists. See Protection, 4.

Protective

Affording protection; sheltering; defensive.

Protector

One who, or that which, defends or shields from injury, evil, oppression, etc.; a defender; a guardian; a patron.

Protectoral

Of or pertaining to a protector; protectorial; as, protectoral power.

Protectorate

Government by a protector; -- applied especially to the government of England by Oliver Cromwell.

Proteg/e Protege

One under the care and protection of another, especially one receiving counseling and assistance in career development.

Proteid

An older, imprecise term replaced by protein.

Proteidea

An order of aquatic amphibians having prominent external gills and four legs. It includes Proteus and Menobranchus (Necturus). Called also Proteoidea, and Proteida.

Proteiform

Changeable in form; resembling a Proteus, or an am/ba.

Protein

any polymer of an amino acid joined by peptide (amide) bonds. Most natural proteins have alpha-amino acids as the monomeric constituents. All classical enzymes are composed of protein, and control most of the biochemical transformations carrie dout in living cells. They may be soluble, as casein, albumins, and other globular proteins, or insoluble (e. g. "structural proteins"), as collagen or keratin. "albumin", an older term for protein, is now used primarily to refer to certain specific soluble globular proteins found in eggs or blood serum, e.g. bovine serum albumin, the main soluble protein in teh serum of cattle, used as an enzymatically inert protein in biochemical research.

Proteles

A South Africa genus of Carnivora, allied to the hyenas, but smaller and having weaker jaws and teeth. It includes the aard-wolf.

Protend

To hold out; to stretch forth.

Proteolysis

The digestion or dissolving of proteid matter by proteolytic ferments.

Proteolytic

Converting proteid or albuminous matter into soluble and diffusible products, as peptones.

Proteose

One of a class of soluble products formed in the digestion of proteids with gastric and pancreatic juice, and also by the hydrolytic action of boiling dilute acids on proteids. Proteoses are divided into the two groups, the primary and secondary proteoses.

Proterandrous

Having the stamens come to maturity before the pistil; -- opposed to proterogynous.

Proteranthous

Having flowers appearing before the leaves; -- said of certain plants.

Proteroglypha

A suborder of serpents including those that have permanently erect grooved poison fangs, with ordinary teeth behind them in the jaws. It includes the cobras, the asps, and the sea snakes. Called also Proteroglyphia.

Proterogynous

Having the pistil come to maturity before the stamens; protogynous; -- opposed to proterandrous.

Proterosaurus

An extinct genus of reptiles of the Permian period. Called also Protosaurus.

Protest

A solemn declaration of opinion, commonly a formal objection against some act; especially, a formal and solemn declaration, in writing, of dissent from the proceedings of a legislative body; as, the protest of lords in Parliament.

Protestantism

The quality or state of being protestant, especially against the Roman Catholic Church; the principles or religion of the Protestants.

Protestantly

Like a Protestant; in conformity with Protestantism.

Protestation

The act of making a protest; a public avowal; a solemn declaration, especially of dissent.

Protester

One who protests; one who utters a solemn declaration.

Proteus

A sea god in the service of Neptune who assumed different shapes at will. Hence, one who easily changes his appearance or principles.

Prothallus

The minute primary growth from the spore of ferns and other Pteridophyta, which bears the true sexual organs; the oophoric generation of ferns, etc.

Prothesis

A credence table; -- so called by the Eastern or Greek Church.

Prothetic

Of or pertaining to prothesis; as, a prothetic apparatus.

Prothorax

The first or anterior segment of the thorax in insects. See Illusts. of Butterfly and Coleoptera.

Protista

A provisional group in which are placed a number of low microscopic organisms of doubtful nature. Some are probably plants, others animals.

Proto-Doric

Pertaining to, or designating, architecture, in which the beginnings of the Doric style are supposed to be found.

Protocanonical

Of or pertaining to the first canon, or that which contains the authorized collection of the books of Scripture; -- opposed to deutero-canonical.

Protocatechuic

Pertaining to, derived from, or designating, an organic acid which is obtained as a white crystalline substance from catechin, asafetida, oil of cloves, etc., and by distillation itself yields pyrocatechin.

Protocercal

Having a caudal fin extending around the end of the vertebral column, like that which is first formed in the embryo of fishes; diphycercal.

Protococcus

A genus of minute unicellular alg/ including the red snow plant (Protococcus nivalis).

Protocol

To make or write protocols, or first draughts; to issue protocols.

Protoconch

The embryonic shell, or first chamber, of ammonites and other cephalopods.

Protogine

A kind of granite or gneiss containing a silvery talcose mineral.

Protohippus

A genus of fossil horses from the Lower Pliocene. They had three toes on each foot, the lateral ones being small.

Protomartyr

The first martyr; the first who suffers, or is sacrificed, in any cause; -- applied esp. to Stephen, the first Christian martyr.

Protometals

A finer form of metals, indicated by enhanced lines in their spark spectra (which are also observed in the spectra of some stars), obtained at the highest available laboratory temperatures (Lockyer); as protocalcium, protochromium, protocopper, protonickel, protosilicon, protostrontium, prototitanium, protovanadium.

Protomorphic

Having the most primitive character; in the earliest form; as, a protomorphic layer of tissue.

Protonema

The primary growth from the spore of a moss, usually consisting of branching confervoid filaments, on any part of which stem and leaf buds may be developed.

Protoorganism

An organism whose nature is so difficult to determine that it might be referred to either the animal or the vegetable kingdom.

Protophyte

Any unicellular plant, or plant forming only a plasmodium, having reproduction only by fission, gemmation, or cell division.

Protopine

An alkaloid found in opium in small quantities, and extracted as a white crystalline substance.

Protoplasm

The viscid and more or less granular material of vegetable and animal cells, possessed of vital properties by which the processes of nutrition, secretion, and growth go forward; the so-called / physical basis of life;/ the original cell substance, cytoplasm, cytoblastema, bioplasm sarcode, etc.

Protoplasmic

Of or pertaining to the first formation of living bodies.

Protoplasta

A division of fresh-water rhizopods including those that have a soft body and delicate branched pseudopodia. The genus Gromia is one of the best-known.

Protopodite

The basal portion, or two proximal and more or less consolidated segments, of an appendage of a crustacean.

Protopope

One of the clergy of first rank in the lower order of secular clergy; an archpriest; -- called also protopapas.

Protosalt

A salt derived from a protoxide base.

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