umbilicus
/ʌmˈbɪl.ɪ.kəs/ noun
Forms umbilici umbilicuses
- noun (anatomy) A navel.
- noun (loosely, sometimes proscribed) A umbilical cord.
- noun (botany) A hilum.
- noun (zoology) A depression or opening in the center of the base of many spiral shells.
- noun (zoology) Either of the two apertures in the calamus of a feather.
- noun (space science) A tube connecting an astronaut or spacecraft to the mothership, through which supplies and samples can be transferred.
- noun (geometry, obsolete) One of the foci of an ellipse or other curve.
- noun (geometry) A point of a surface at which the curvatures of the normal sections are all equal to each other. “A sphere may be osculatory to the surface in every direction at an umbilicus.”
Synonyms
Etymology
L. See Umbilic.
Webster’s 1913
Sources: Wiktionary · WordNet 3.0 · Webster’s 1913 — from the Wiktionary entry “umbilicus”, CC BY-SA 4.0. Details