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What does the word molecule mean?

• Smallest subdivision of a mass, possessing individual existence.

• Diminutive of moles, "a mass." A minute portion of any body. Also, the cicatricula, macula, galintura, gelatinous molecule, tread of the cock, or embryo part of the impregnated ovum, observable by the microscope before the ovum has left he ovarium of the hen. It lies under the epidermic coats of the yelk, and upon its proper coat. If the ovum, according to Valentin, be lacerated and its contents minutely examined, the cicatricula is found like a grayish white disk, which in its whole periphery is dense, granulous, and opake; but in the centre presents a clear, nongranulous, and perfectly disphanous point. Purkinje found, that when he removed the dark granulous mass by suction with a small tube, there remained a perfectly transparent vesicle filled with a pellucid lymph, which had a decidedly spherical form, but, being extremently delicate, was easily lacerated, and then its fluid escaped. As he found this which later naturalists have named- after its discoverer. Besides a perfectly colourless fluid, this contains one or more dark corpuscles, which appear as a nucleus through the including membrane in the shape of opake spots. The granulous membrane- its thickened portion, the so-called "cicatricula," - and the germinal vesicle, constitute those parts of the ovum which pass immediately into the original foundation of the embryo.

• [ Latin] A very small particle of matter; in physics, the smallest portion of matter which can exhibit the properties of matter; in chemistry, a combination of two or more atoms; particularly, the smallest combination of two or more atoms that can exist as such in a free state. Thus a m. of oxygen is O2(= 2 atoms of oxygen united together); a m. of ozone is O3; a m. of water is H2O, or two atoms of hydrogen united to one atom of oxygen. The sum of the atomic weights of the atoms composing the m. gives the weights of the latter as compared with an atom hydrogen( Molecular Weight); e. i.; the molecular weight of water is 18( =weight H2, or 2+ weight of O or 16). In the gaseous state all compounds contain, under the same condition of temperature and pressure, the same number of m’s( Avogadro’s law). In this state the volume of all m’s( Molecular volume) is represented by 2; i. e., the volume of the hydrogen m. ( H2) being regarded as twice that of the hydrogen atom( H), the volume of water( H2O), is the state of steam, is also found to be twice that of H. or its molecular volume is 2. The molecular weight of such a compound, therefore, is double its specific gravity in the gaseous state when referred to an equal volume of hydrogen considered as unity. The m’s of most elements contain 2 atoms and are said to be Diatomic; those of mercury, cadmium, and zinc contain one atom( Monatomic m’s); that of zinc contains 3 atoms( Triatomic m.); those of phosphorus and arsenic contain 4 atoms( Tetratomic m’s); that of sulphur in Hexatomic( containing 6 atoms). The relations of the separate m’s to teach each other are governed by forces( Molecular forces) of attraction and repulsion the character of which determines the shape and properties of the body which the m’s constitute.

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