Definition of "capillary" [cap•il•la•ry]

• Relating to or resembling a hair; fine and slender. (adjective)
• Having a very small internal diameter: a capillary tube. (adjective)
• Anatomy Of or relating to the capillaries. (adjective)
• Physics Of or relating to capillarity. (adjective)
• Anatomy One of the minute blood vessels that connect arterioles and venules. These blood vessels form an intricate network throughout the body for the interchange of various substances, such as oxygen and carbon dioxide, between blood and tissue cells. (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.

• "Hemangioma is an all-encompassing term, while the term capillary malformation better describes one of the hallmarks of Klippel-Trénaunay syndrome."
• "We therefore thank Yan and colleagues and agree with them that the term capillary malformation should be used in the future to define the cutaneous feature of Klippel-Trénaunay syndrome."
• "The capillary walls widen so forcefully that they become permeable to blood plasma, so that the capillary is at last filled by a solid mass of corpuscles."