The Collaborative International Dictionary
Contractile \Con*tract"ile\, a. [Cf. F. contractile.] tending to contract; having the power or property of contracting, or of shrinking into shorter or smaller dimensions; as, the contractile tissues.
The heart's contractile force.
--H. Brooke.
Each cilium seems to be composed of contractile
substance.
--Hixley.
Contractile vacuole (Zo["o]l.), a pulsating cavity in the interior of a protozoan, supposed to be excretory in function. There may be one, two, or more.
Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
1706, from French contractile, from Latin contract-, past participle stem of contrahere (see contract (n.)). Related: Contractility. Contractile vacuole is from 1877.
Wiktionary
a. Capable of contracting, or of being contracted.
WordNet
adj. capable of contracting or being contracted; "the contractile wings of an insect"
Wikipedia
Usage examples of "contractile".
Yet when her patients came back after another three months, in more than half the cases their echocardiograms showed a marked improvement in the contractile strength of the affected myocardium.
Aldrovanda, 321 , on contractile tissues in plants, 364 , on movements of stamens of Compositae, 256 , on Utricularia, 395 Colchicine, action on Drosera, 204 Copper chloride, action on Drosera, 185 Crystallin, its digestion by Drosera, 120 Curare, action on Drosera, 204 Curtis, Dr.
The womb into which each egg goes is bioplasmed and contractile, the whole environment closely duplicating a specific natural pregnancy which has served Reseune for forty-nine years: it replicates all the movements, the sounds, the chemical states, and the interactive cycles of a living womb.
In this dynamic enclosure one can move about against both elastic and contractile forces, change posture, relax, suck one’.
It does have a rudimentary vascular system to transport nutrients for renewing itself, an arrangement of contractile tissues that enable it to move, and a network of conductive fibers that transmit electrical discharges in response to applied mechanical force.