hyaline

comparative more hyaline · superlative most hyaline · alternative hyalin

1. Glassy, transparent; amorphous.

   And, as below she braids her hyaline hair, / Eyes her soft smiles reflected in the air […].

   1791, Erasmus Darwin, The Economy of Vegetation, J. Johnson, page 117

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   They bathed shivering in the cold waves, green hyaline swells in which they stood to the hips savage, intimate, comradely.

   1974, Guy Davenport, Tatlin!

plural hyalines · alternative hyalin

1. countablepoeticuncountableAnything glassy, translucent or transparent; the sea or sky.

   The clear hyaline, the glassy sea.

   1667, John Milton, “Book VII”, in Paradise Lost. […], London: […] [Samuel Simmons], and are to be sold by Peter Parker […]; [a]nd by Robert Boulter […]; [a]nd Matthias Walker, […], →OCLC; republished as Paradise Lost in Ten Books: […], London: Basil Montagu Pickering […], 1873, →OCLC

   1 more example

   Our blood runs amazed 'neath the calm hyaline.

   1844, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, A Rhapsody of Life's Progress

2. countableuncountableanatomyA clear translucent substance in tissues.
3. countableuncountablebiochemistryThe main constituent of the walls of hydatid cysts; a nitrogenous body, which, by decomposition, yields a dextrogyrate sugar, susceptible to alcoholic fermentation.

   where a villus comes next to a gland the short cubical cells of the gland may be traced into the columnar cells of the villus , the hyaline border becoming more marked

   1880, Arthur Gamgee, A Text-book of the physiological chemistry […]