Definition of "spicule" [spic•ule]

• A small needlelike structure or part, such as one of the silicate or calcium carbonate processes supporting the soft tissue of certain invertebrates, especially sponges. (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "But now, as he threaded his way down, that flicker of light was the faint spicule of a star that burned with the hot roar of a nova."
• "The sea urchin larval spicule is a model system for biominerals, and the first one in which the amorphous calcium carbonate precursor was discovered in 1997 by the same Israeli group co-authoring the current PNAS paper."
• "Any spicule, any prominence, would long since have either fallen back into the chromosphere, or blown away entirely…but not this thing."