Osselet: = ossicle; q.v. ossicle: a small nodule of chitin resembling a bone.    From Wordnik.com.  [Explanation of Terms Used in Entomology] Reference

The third ear-ossicle of mammals, the stapes, comes not from the first arch but from the second.    From Wordnik.com.  [Form and Function A Contribution to the History of Animal Morphology] Reference

There's little point discussing the minutiae of ossicle evolution if you reject that reptiles and mammals share a common ancestor.    From Wordnik.com.  [A New Book] Reference

Because in doing so it strikes again and again on the second bone, this first ossicle is called the matteus (mal'ee-us; "hammer" L).    From Wordnik.com.  [The Human Brain]

In some Anura it formed the ossicle of the ear (homologue of the columella of birds and the stapes of mammals), in others it disappeared.    From Wordnik.com.  [Form and Function A Contribution to the History of Animal Morphology] Reference

If the tiny muscles attached to them are damaged, or if the nerves leading to those muscles are, the ossicle movements become somewhat erratic.    From Wordnik.com.  [The Human Brain]

Within the airfilled middle ear the vibrations are transmitted via a subtle system of levers, the ossicle chain, to the fluid of the inner ear, the cochlea.    From Wordnik.com.  [Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 1961 - Presentation Speech] Reference

In birds, where there is a single ear-ossicle, the columella, the middle piece of arch I forms, as we have seen, the quadrate, by means of which the lower jaw is joined to the skull.    From Wordnik.com.  [Form and Function A Contribution to the History of Animal Morphology] Reference

The footplate of the stirrup which serves as the innermost link of the ossicle chain is movably mounted in the opening of the oval window of the inner ear which faces the middle ear.    From Wordnik.com.  [Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 1961 - Presentation Speech] Reference

Among von Békésy's important contributions to our knowledge of sound transmission in the middle ear should be mentioned the elucidation of the vibration patterns of the eardrum and of the interplay of the ossicle movements.    From Wordnik.com.  [Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 1961 - Presentation Speech] Reference

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.    From Wordnik.com.  [What a difference a day makes. - The Panda's Thumb] Reference

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.    From Wordnik.com.  [A Decade Spanning Single Exchange] Reference

Though some would debate your right to ears if you keep your iPod volume maxed at an ossicle-wobbling level, an owner of Apple's popular Lilliputian jukebox has filed a lawsuit against the computer maker, claiming the device can cause hearing loss in people who use it.    From Wordnik.com.  [Jobs' Apple Faces Lawsuit Over iPod Volume] Reference

Though I have every reason to believe, that between the prostate of the male and the uterus of the female, the same amount of analogy exists, as between a coccygeal ossicle and the complete vertebral form elsewhere situated in the spinal series, I am as far from regarding the two former to be in all respects structurally or functionally alike, as I am from entertaining the like idea in respect to the two latter.    From Wordnik.com.  [Surgical Anatomy] Reference

Sometimes the styloid process of the third metacarpal is detached and forms an additional ossicle.    From Wordnik.com.  [II. Osteology. 6b. 3. The Phalanges of the Hand] Reference

One, the pterion ossicle, sometimes exists between the sphenoidal angle of the parietal and the great wing of the sphenoid.    From Wordnik.com.  [II. Osteology. 5a. 6. Ethmoid bone] Reference

It loses its connection with the palato-pterygoid, and apparently ossifies as a small ossicle -- the incus of the middle ear.    From Wordnik.com.  [Text Book of Biology, Part 1: Vertebrata] Reference

In the frog the wrist-bones (called respectively the magnum and unciforme) which support the third, fourth, and the little fingers, are formed together into a single ossicle.    From Wordnik.com.  [The Common Frog] Reference

Thomka in 1895 reported a case of supernumerary tympanic ossicle, the nature of which was unknown, although it was neither an inflammatory product nor a remnant of Meckel's cartilage.    From Wordnik.com.  [Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine] Reference

Bones of foot of Frog. -- a, astragalus; c, os calcis; ac, united portions of these bones; li, extra ossicle of inner side of foot; cb, ossicle representing cuboid and other tarsal bones -- 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 -- the five metatarsals.    From Wordnik.com.  [The Common Frog] Reference

A case of supernumerary tympanic ossicle, the nature of which was unknown, although it was neither an inflammatory product nor a remnant of Meckel's cartilage.    From Wordnik.com.  [Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine] Reference

Radial ossicle, 176.    From Wordnik.com.  [On the Genesis of Species] Reference