/ˈbɜːsə/, /ˈbɝsə/
OriginBorrowed from Medieval Latin bursa (“purse”), from Ancient Greek βύρσα (búrsa); compare purse and bourse, which are doublets.
- Any of the many small fluid-filled sacs located at the point where a muscle or tendon slides across bone. These sacs serve to reduce friction between the two moving surfaces.
“A bursa over the anterior aspect of the upper end of the tibia, between the patellar tendon and the tubercle of the tibia, is sometimes enlarged, and may be mistaken for synovitis of the joint.”
“Bursitis is inflammation of a bursa, which results in pain, tenderness, and stiffness and in some cases, swelling and redness.”
“A bursa may be present deep to coracobrachialis tendon.”
- A diverticulum on the cloaca of young birds, which serves as a lymphatic organ and as part of the immune system, but which atrophies as the bird ages.
“The general relations of the bursa to the cloaca are shown in the two accompanying figures.”
“The dark, crescentic area is the opening of the bursa, from which the covering membrane is temporarily withdrawn.”
“The bursa is located near the terminal portion of the cloaca and, like the thymus, is a lymphoepithelial organ.”
- Any of various pouch-like organs for storing semen prior to copulation in the male or for receiving semen in the female.
“That portion of the dilated vas deferens which lies outside the cavity of the genital bursa is called the external seminal vesicle .”
“In other groups, all members of each clade lack a bursa copulatrix. Conversely, some taxa such as many Dendronotina may lack a receptaculum but possess a bursa.”
“The vagina extends anteriorly over the dorsal side of seminal vesicle to the sperm-filled seminal bursa.”
- A parament about twelve inches square in which the folded corporal is kept in for reasons of reverence.
“In solemn mass the deacon brings the book of the Missal to the side of the epistle, then goes backward behind the celebrant; the sub-deacon, indeed, goes to the gospel side, where he cleanses the chal”
“It is forbidden to leave the corporal, when not in use, exposed upon the altar, or to carry it in one's hands without a covering. A bursa is always to be used for that purpose .”
“Just like relics, the Eucharist was taken, enclosed in a bursa or pendula as a means of protection not only on journeys overland but - and especially - when travellers ventured onto the whimsical sea.”
- A province and metropolitan municipality in northwestern Anatolia Turkey, on the Sea of Marmara.
- A city, the capital of Bursa Province, Turkey.
Formsbursae(plural) · bursæ(plural)