pellicle means A thin skin or film.
Why “pellicle” is a great word
A thin skin, film, or membrane, especially one forming on a liquid or serving as a protective outer layer. From Latin pellicula, a diminutive of pellis ("skin, hide"), first attested in English c. 1400. Unlike "cuticle," which is specifically the dead skin at a nail's base or an invertebrate's outer shell, or "film," a broad term often implying synthetic or manufactured layers, a pellicle is the organic hush of a surface transformed. It is the delicate scum on cooling broth, the shimmering sheath that coats a fermenting wine, and the fragile skin stretched over a moth's pupa—nature’s first tentative claim on exposure, a boundary between the vulnerable and the world.
Etymology
From Latin pellicula, from pellis (“skin”). Doublet of pellicule.
noun
- A thin skin or film.
- A cuticle, the hard protective outer layer of certain life forms.
- The outermost layer of a mushroom; the skin of a mushroom cap; especially, a surface that is viscid and easily peels off.
- A thin layer supporting the cell membrane in various protozoa.
- The growth on the surface of a liquid culture.
- A skin or coating of proteins on the surface of meat to be smoked, improving the surface adhesion.
- A coating of glycoproteins from saliva that forms on teeth; it offers some protection to the enamel from bacterial acidity.
- The photosensitive emulsion of photographic film.
- A thin plastic membrane used as a beam splitter or protective cover (for example, to protect a photomask).
Words closest in meaning
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