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islet

 
(ī'lĭt) pronunciation
n.
A very small island: rocky islets off the coast.


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islet

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pronunciation

IN BRIEF: n. - A small piece of land surrounded by water.

Tutor's tip: Put the lace through the last "eyelet" (a small eye or hole designed to receive a lace) of your shoe and let's walk around the "islet" (a small island).

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any small group of cells that is structurally distinct from the surrounding tissue, especially the islets of Langerhans.

Previous:ischemia, irreversible process, irreversible competitive antagonist
Next:islet-1, islet-activating protein, islets of Langerhans

An island.

  • i. cell — one of the cells making up the islet of Langerhans.
  • i. cell neoplasia — occur mostly in old dogs and morphologically they occur as adenomas or adenocarcinomas. Functionally they appear only in the form of hyperinsulinism and hypoglycemia. Rarely there are gastrin-secreting tumors causing a zollinger–ellison syndrome.
  • i's of Langerhans — irregular microscopic structures scattered throughout the pancreas and comprising its endocrine portion. They contain the alpha cells, which secrete the hyperglycemic factor glucagon; the beta cells, which secrete insulin, and whose degeneration is one of the causes of diabetes mellitus; and the delta cells, which secrete somatostatin.
  • pancreatic i. — see islets of Langerhans (above).
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categories related to 'islet'

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Random House Word Menu by Stephen Glazier
For a list of words related to islet, see:

For human anatomy, see Islets of Langerhans
Mōkōlea Rock in Kailua Bay, O‘ahu, Hawai‘i, 2.2 km off North Beach, Marine Corps Base Hawaii

An islet is a very small island.

Contents

Types

As suggested by its origin as islette, an Old French diminutive of "isle",[1] use of the term implies small size, but little attention is given to drawing an upper limit on its applicability.

  • Rock - A "rock", in the sense of a type of islet, is a landform composed of rock, lying offshore, uninhabited, and having at most minimal vegetation.
  • Sandbar - An exposed sandbar is another type of islet.
  • Sea stack - A thin, vertical landform jutting out of a body of water.
  • Subsidiary islets - A more technical application is to small land features, isolated by water, lying off the shore of a larger island. Likewise, any emergent land in an atoll is also called an islet.
    • Tidal island - Often small islands (not necessarily always islets) which lie off the mainland of an area, being connected to it in low tide and isolated in high tide.
  • River island - A small islet within the current of a river.
    • Ait or eyot - A term for river islands that occur within the River Thames in England.

Synonymous terms

  • Holm or Holmen is a common suffix too in Nordic and northern European countries ("holme" means "islet" in Danish, Norwegian and Swedish, although the meaning is more precise: a holme in Swedish is usually big enough to have wood and some fresh water but too small for a village; smaller islets have other names – there is an intricate name system to make it possible to remember and recognize different islets, hundreds of which have been important in some archipelagos).
  • In the Caribbean and West Atlantic, islets are often called cays or keys. Rum Cay in the Bahamas and the Florida Keys off Florida are examples of islets.
  • In the Channel Islands, they are often identified by the suffix -hou from the Norse -holm.
  • In Scotland and Ireland, they are often called inches, from the Gaelic innis, which originally meant island, but has been supplanted to refer to smaller islands. In Ireland they are often termed skerries.
  • In and around Polynesia, islets are widely known by the term motu, from the term for the coral-rubble islets common to the region.
Polynesian Sunset With Motu - Photograph by Patty Mooney
  • In and around the River Thames in England, small islands are known as aits.

List of islets

There are thousands of islets on Earth: approximately 24,000 islands and islets in the Stockholm archipelago alone. The following is a list of example islets from around the world.

References

  1. ^ Webster's New International Dictionary of the English Language, Second Edition, 1958

Translations:

Islet

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Dansk (Danish)
n. - lille ø, holm

idioms:

  • islets of Langerhans    Langerhansøerne

Nederlands (Dutch)
eilandje

Français (French)
n. - îlot

idioms:

  • islets of Langerhans    îlot de Langerhans

Deutsch (German)
n. - kleine Insel

idioms:

  • islets of Langerhans    (Med.) Langerhanssche Inseln, (Gruppe von Pankreaszellen, die Insulin produzieren)

Ελληνική (Greek)
n. - (γεωγρ.) νησίδα, νησάκι

idioms:

  • islets of Langerhans    (ιατρ.) νησίδια του Λάνγκερχανς

Italiano (Italian)
isolotto

idioms:

  • islets of Langerhans    isole di Langerhans

Português (Portuguese)
n. - ilhota (f)

idioms:

  • islets of Langerhans    células (f) produtoras da insulina (Histol.)

Русский (Russian)
островок, обособленный кусочек животной или растительной ткани

idioms:

  • islets of Langerhans    панкреатический островок (мед.)

Español (Spanish)
n. - isleta, islote

idioms:

  • islets of Langerhans    islotes de Langerhans (anatomía)

Svenska (Swedish)
n. - liten ö, holme

中文(简体)(Chinese (Simplified))
小岛

idioms:

  • islets of Langerhans    郎格汉斯氏岛

中文(繁體)(Chinese (Traditional))
n. - 小島

idioms:

  • islets of Langerhans    郎格漢斯氏島

한국어 (Korean)
n. - 작은 섬

日本語 (Japanese)
n. - 小島

idioms:

  • islets of Langerhans    ランゲルハンス島

العربيه (Arabic)
‏(الاسم) الجزيرة : الجزيرة الصغيرة‏

עברית (Hebrew)
n. - ‮אי קטן, איון‬


 
 

 

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