capillaries

[ (kap-uh-ler-eez) ]


The tiny blood vessels throughout the body that connect arteries and veins. Capillaries form an intricate network around body tissues in order to distribute oxygen and nutrients to the cells and remove waste substances. (See circulatory system.)

Words Nearby capillaries

The New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, Third Edition Copyright © 2005 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

How to use capillaries in a sentence

  • Three muscle-fibres lying beside each other, with the small blood-vessels (capillaries) around and between them.

  • Some of the amœboid corpuscles from the blood make their way between the cells forming the walls of the capillaries.

    A Civic Biology | George William Hunter
  • This network of capillaries may be followed into larger veins in which the blood moves regularly.

    A Civic Biology | George William Hunter
  • In the walls of these pouches are numerous capillaries, the ends of arteries which pass from the heart into the lung.

    A Civic Biology | George William Hunter
  • And then my capillaries relaxed, for I dimly saw him footing it away through the darkness.

    Sixes and Sevens | O. Henry