primitive cell

noun

, Crystallography.

1. a unit cell containing no points of the lattice except at the corners of the cell.

Word History and Origins

Origin of primitive cell¹

First recorded in 1930–35

Example Sentences

They found that when hot hydrogen-rich fluids were mixed with carbon dioxide-rich water in the presence of iron-based minerals that were present on the early Earth it created the types of molecules needed to form primitive cell membranes.

From Science Daily

As it began to divide, cancer genes took over and the single primitive cell barreled forward into a massive tumor.

From New York Times

Jack Szostak and his colleagues at Harvard Medical School in Boston have taken a different approach, enclosing RNA molecules in fatty-acid vesicles as an early step towards the creation of a primitive cell.

From Nature

It is the life-basis, the primitive cell of the aggregate of cities and bodies politic.

From Project Gutenberg

We think that a primitive cell has to have two parts.

From New York Times