Dictionary

bursa en · NOUN

Pronunciation

• /ˈbɝsə/ (US)
• (Southern-England) audio
• /ˈbɜːsə/ (UK)

Etymology

Borrowed from Medieval Latin bursa (“purse”), from Ancient Greek βύρσα (búrsa); compare purse and bourse, which are doublets.

Meanings

1. Any of the many small fluid-filled sacs located at the point where a muscle or tendon slides across bone. These sacs serve to reduce friction between the two moving surfaces.
   • Bursitis is inflammation of a bursa, which results in pain, tenderness, and stiffness and in some cases, swelling and redness. 2004, Dicken Weatherby, Signs and Symptoms Analysis from a Functional Perspective, page 247:
   • A bursa may be present deep to coracobrachialis tendon. 2011, Neeta V. Kulkarni, Clinical Anatomy (A Problem Solving Approach), page 116:
   • A bursa over the anterior aspect of the upper end of the tibia, between the patellar tendon and the tubercle of the tibia, is sometimes enlarged, and may be mistaken for synovitis of the joint. 1899, Roswell Park, A Treatise on Surgery, page 402:
2. A diverticulum on the cloaca of young birds, which serves as a lymphatic organ and as part of the immune system, but which atrophies as the bird ages.
   • The dark, crescentic area is the opening of the bursa, from which the covering membrane is temporarily withdrawn. 1943, Charles Milton Kirkpatrick, Growth, Development, and Endocrine Studies of the Ring-necked Pheasant, with Special Reference to the Bursa of Fabricius, page 37:
   • The bursa is located near the terminal portion of the cloaca and, like the thymus, is a lymphoepithelial organ. 2009, Julius M. Cruse, Robert E. Lewis, Illustrated Dictionary of Immunology:
   • The general relations of the bursa to the cloaca are shown in the two accompanying figures. 1898, Frank Evers Beddard, The Structure and Classification of Birds, page 36:
3. Any of various pouchlike organs for storing semen prior to copulation in the male or for receiving semen in the female.
   • In other groups, all members of each clade lack a bursa copulatrix. Conversely, some taxa such as many Dendronotina may lack a receptaculum but possess a bursa. 2010, Janet Leonard, Alex Cordoba-Aguilar, The Evolution of Primary Sexual Characters in Animals, page 156:
   • That portion of the dilated vas deferens which lies outside the cavity of the genital bursa is called the external seminal vesicle . 1978, V.M. Ivashkin, Helminths of Farm Animals of the Mongolian People's Republic, page 16:
   • The vagina extends anteriorly over the dorsal side of seminal vesicle to the sperm-filled seminal bursa. 2017, Fatik Baran Mandal, Biology of Non-Chordates, page 185:
4. A parament about twelve inches square in which the folded corporal is kept in for reasons of reverence.
   • In solemn mass the deacon brings the book of the Missal to the side of the epistle, then goes backward behind the celebrant; the sub-deacon, indeed, goes to the gospel side, where he cleanses the chalice, fits it with the purifacatory, covers it with the paten and pall, folds the corporal, replaces it in the bursa, and puts it in the chalice covered with a veil, which he places on the altar or over the credentia, as before. 1853, George Lewis, The Bible, the Missal, and the Breviary, page 358:
   • Just like relics, the Eucharist was taken, enclosed in a bursa or pendula as a means of protection not only on journeys overland but - and especially - when travellers ventured onto the whimsical sea. 1995, Godefridus J. C. Snoek, Medieval Piety from Relics to the Eucharist, page 90:
   • It is forbidden to leave the corporal, when not in use, exposed upon the altar, or to carry it in one's hands without a covering. A bursa is always to be used for that purpose . 1890, “The "Corporale" and "Palla"”, in American Ecclesiastical Review, volume 3, page 419:

Forms

Deriveds

bursectomy · omental bursa · gastrocnemiosemimembranosus bursa · bursaless · bursocentesis · bursiform · bursography · burso- · bursalogy · gastrocnemio-semimembranosus bursa · bursal · bursitis · bursopathy · bursa of Fabricius

Relateds

bursary · reimburse · bursar · disburse