Definition of "ossicle" [os•si•cle]

• A small bone, especially one of the three bones of the middle ear. (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.

• "There's little point discussing the minutiae of ossicle evolution if you reject that reptiles and mammals share a common ancestor."
• "If the eardrum is no longer physically connected to the inner ear, i.e. loss of a single ossicle, the impedance matching effectively reduces to zero (in fact "poor impedance matching" is just an oxymoron), but hearing does not require all parts of the system."
• "Every reptile, living or fossil, however, has at least four bones in the lower jaw and only one auditory ossicle, the stapes… There are no transitional fossil forms showing, for instance, three or two jawbones, or two ear bones."