villus

Borrowed from Latin villus (“shaggy hair”).

• IPA^(key): /ˈvɪləs/
• Rhymes: -ɪləs

villus (plural villi)

1. (biology) A small projection from a membrane, particularly those found in the mucous membranes of the intestines.
   • 1880, Arthur Gamgee, A Text-book of the physiological chemistry […] :

     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

   • 1966 February, Robert Schrek, ““Hairy” Cells in Blood in Lymphoreticular Neoplastic Disease and “Flagellated” Cells of Normal Lymph Nodes”, in Blood, volume 27, number 2, page 199:

     Studies of the viable blood cells with phase contrast microscopy showed peculiar cells that had numerous short villi and were arbitrarily called “hairy cells.”

2. (botany) One of the fine soft hairs on fruits, flowers, and other parts of plants.

Dialectal variant of vellus (“fleece”).

villus m (genitive villī); second declension

1. hair, tuft of hair, shaggy hair
   • 29 BCE – 19 BCE, Virgil, Aeneid I.701–702:

     Dant famulī manibus lymphās, Cereremque canistrīs
     expediunt, tōnsīsque ferunt mantēlia villīs.

     The servants give the hands waters, and corn from wicker baskets
     they deal, and bring towels of smooth hair.

Second-declension noun.

• villōsus
• villūtus (Late Latin)

• Italian: vello, → villo
• Spanish: vello
• → English: villus

• “villus”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• “villus”, in Charlton T. Lewis (1891) An Elementary Latin Dictionary, New York: Harper & Brothers
• "villus", in Charles du Fresne du Cange’s Glossarium Mediæ et Infimæ Latinitatis (augmented edition with additions by D. P. Carpenterius, Adelungius and others, edited by Léopold Favre, 1883–1887)
• villus in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire illustré latin-français, Hachette.