| porcelain | <botany> Purslain. A fine translucent or semitransculent kind of earthenware, made first in China and Japan, but now also in Europe and America; called also China, or China ware. "Porcelain, by being pure, is apt to break." (Dryden) Ivory porcelain, porcelain with a surface like ivory, produced by depolishing. See Depolishing. Porcelain clay. See Clay. <zoology> Porcelain crab, a cowry. Origin: F. Porcelaine, It. Porcellana, orig, the porcelain shell, or Venus shell (Cypraea porcellana), from a dim. Fr. L. Porcus pig, probably from the resemblance of the shell in shape to a pig's back. Porcelain was called after this shell, either on account of its smoothness and whiteness, or because it was believed to be made from it. See Pork. Source: Websters Dictionary (01 Mar 1998) |
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| porcelain gallbladder | <radiology> Calcium incrustation of gallbladder wall, 0.6-0.8% of cholecystectomy patients, 80% female, 10-20% develop gallbladder carcinoma, 90% associated with gallstones findings: nonfunctioning gallbladder on oral cholecystogram, highly echogenic shadowing curvilinear sturucture in the gallbladder fossa (Differential diagnosis: stone-filled contracted gall bladder), echogenic gallbladder wall with little acoustic shadowing (Differential diagnosis: emphysematous cholecystitis), scattered irregular clumps of echoes with posterior acoustic shadowing (12 Dec 1998) |
| porcelain inlay | A fused porcelain restoration luted in a cavity prepared in a tooth. (05 Mar 2000) |
| porcelainised | <geology> Baked like potter's lay; applied to clay shales that have been converted by heat into a substance resembling porcelain. Source: Websters Dictionary (01 Mar 1998) |
| dental porcelain | <chemical> A type of porcelain used in dental restorations, either jacket crowns or inlays, artificial teeth, or metal-ceramic crowns. It is essentially a mixture of particles of feldspar and quartz, the feldspar melting first and providing a glass matrix for the quartz. Dental porcelain is produced by mixing ceramic powder (a mixture of quartz, kaolin, pigments, opacifiers, a suitable flux, and other substances) with distilled water. Chemical name: Dental materials and fillings, porcelain (12 Dec 1998) |
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